Strawberry Milkshake Cookies

After most of a month with no posting, the temperature has been going down enough to start baking. I haven't stopped baking completely since the last post, since I made two box cakes for my dad to take to church and he came back with a request from our priest to make him some lemon bars. Even before that, my sister went off to college out of town, so I made her some cookie sandwiches to take with her.

My next project was going to be a cookie cake for my brother's birthday, but he asked for brownies instead. So, I found these strawberry milkshake cookies on Pinterest and had to try them. I'm a little too into trying Pinterest recipes, to be honest.

This time, I double-checked that we had all the ingredients hours before I started, and triple-checked by taking this picture:

And after I took this picture, I turned the kitchen light on.

One thing I'd like to point out about this recipe is that the dough is sticky. Very, very sticky. I got some on my fingers and couldn't even rub it off without water, so my poor cookie scooper (which was already broken) got stuck again.

After that, I used spoons. Plural. I had to use one spoon to scrape the dough off of the other spoon and onto the baking sheet. But at least it made really big cookies.

My dad took some of these cookies to work, and one guy offered to buy a dozen. So, the final thought on this recipe is that it's a good one.

Cookie Dough Popsicles

"I wanted to make popsicles for the blog, but we're out of chocolate chips!"

Have you ever heard that one before? Neither had my dad, apparently.

It's been way too hot to bake here, so I spent the past several days looking up no-bake recipes to try out when I had the chance. As good as all the pies looked, I am a picky eater with a thing against most types of pie crusts, and I wanted to make something for me as well as the rest of the family. I'll post a few of those later. This recipe is for, as the post title suggests, the Invisible Cookie Dough Ice Pops from cutoutandkeep.

As we are writing fan fiction (we're about to start our fourth year of this in October) and dying of anticipation for the new Gravity Falls episode, my brother and I have been more or less locked in my nice, cool basement bedroom, not willing to move because we don't want to waste the air conditioning when we aren't up there. Popsicles would be perfect.

I forgot to take pictures of the making process, but it's just like making chocolate milk. Instead, I'll show you the "after" shots, complete with pictures of my mom's hands:

Of course, when she tried to taste one, the stick ended up coming out completely.

But we fixed it, and here's an even better picture of the finished product (with an appearance by the stupid cat that did not get stuck in the couch.)

As for my thoughts on the recipe: the writer wasn't lying. They actually do taste just like a frozen chocolate chip cookie. I used 1% milk where I should have used whole, but we don't have whole milk in the house. The result made the 'cookie dough' melt first and leave behind pure ice, but I will definitely make these again. Maybe at the end of summer...

Cake Decorating Attempt #1 (Or, "The Baker's Taste in Television")

A TV show centered on a sibling team, following an old book's advice as they start fighting monsters. They work together, occasionally with family or friends, to destroy zombies, banish ghosts, and deal with the occasional cursed object.

Supernatural or Gravity Falls?

Gravity Falls, of course. It's actually funny instead of just creepy and filled with drama, and while Sam and Dean have each died about six times, the only deaths mentioned so far in Gravity Falls are the three ghosts, one character's grandfather and a living golf ball. (It makes a little more sense if you watch it, but not much.)

With my brother away at Boy Scout camp the day Disney decided to air a new episode, after months of nothing new, I had to feel sorry for the kid. He doesn't like camp that much.

So, with my little fandom buddy out doing guy stuff, I did the only thing I could: watched thirty minutes of mind-blowing backstory without him and regretted it for the rest of the week. I also baked him a devil's food cake with a tribute to the show on it.

I learned something that day. I may be very good at baking, even from scratch, but I do not have hands steady enough to do a good design yet:

As you can see, this one-eyed monster has no limbs or bow tie (I forgot to draw them) and I had to keep his eye closed, because of another mess-up.

For reference, this is what the character is supposed to look like:

If I had tried to draw the tie, it probably would have come out as a giant mouth hanging wide open, so it probably turned out better this way.

Of course, forgetting details on what basically amounts to "an evil one-eyed Dorito with only two speaking episodes, no matter what you see from the fans" made no difference in the long run, because, as I tried to cover the cake...

He got his revenge.

(This is the AFTER shot of fixing him up, by the way. I was too busy trying not to cry to take the BEFORE picture)

Now it looks like the evil one-eyed Dorito is wearing bad makeup, and I think that's funny.

There was no recipe to review this time, since the cake came from a mix. Instead, I chose to let you admire my horrible drawing skills. I'm going to be doing this more often, so with luck, we'll all see improvements.

Cookie Sandwiches

I was going to make brownies that day, from a mix in the closet full of mixes. It was only my sister's suggestion, and the realization that I didn't see brownie mix in the cake closet after all, only chocolate cake, that made me decide to make these.

It wasn't the first time I made these cookies, unlike the last two blog posts, and I kind of feel like I'm cheating. These cake mix cookie sandwiches are really good, and I made them on Monday. They were gone on Thursday.

What is for the first time is that I finally have a link: The Funfetti Cookie Sandwiches on Cutoutandkeep.

The original poster of this recipe says to use a cup of oil. Trust me, you do not want to do this. It makes the cookies too fragile to frost. Half of a cup is good enough.

(Yes, I am speaking from experience. They were still really good)

When it all got mixed together, I had to keep my brother from eating the 'dough.'  We needed five dozen cookies (slight exaggeration) and we couldn't risk losing one to hungry hands before they were complete.

Halfway through frosting them! One of the completed sandwiches had already been eaten by my brother, one by me, and I just handed another to my sister before taking this picture. These cookies weren't going to last long, but they were going to be good.

Not quite five dozen, as I said. They were all gone by the time I posted this.

This recipe is good. Not quite my favorite cookies, but they're close. I made a (mix) cake for the leftover frosting, just so we could have something baked to last the rest of the week.

"Gumdrop" Cookies

Last December, I attempted to make one batch of cookies for every weekday up until Christmas. That didn't turn out well, but I saved this recipe in the "Printed from the internet before I even considered a recipe review blog" book. It was probably from Allrecipes.com, again.

I didn't want to bake something Christmassy and colorful, since I believe Christmas should be kept in December, where it belongs. My dad and I spent a day bonding over our mutual hatred of Christmas music a few years ago, agreeing that there's only so many times you can hear "Jingle Bell Rock" in November before you want to kill something. Maybe I'm just upset because my favorite holiday is Halloween and I start seeing Christmas commercials before the kids show up at the door for their candy.

Despite my lack of holiday spirit, especially when my brother and sister are out of school for the summer, I found an old bag of "fruit slice" candies and figured that I should do something with them.

The mixing went fine, even though the egg refused to open and I might have thought I needed to pry it open with a knife. My fingernails worked, so no egg brains all over the counter.

I forgot that the recipe called for leaving it in the refrigerator for an hour, so I put it in and waited for two. I was writing and lost track of time, actually, but we won't talk about the Pokémon fan fiction on this blog.

Putting the cookies on the tray wasn't quite as easy. The dough liked to stick, and my cookie scooper broke and doesn't drop them onto the tray anymore. I had to shake them off, which worked out until I ended up sending one flying into my mom's pan of tea water. I baked it anyway, on my dad's suggestion, and ate it myself.

Guess which one got flung into the tea water? (ANSWER: The one without the candy)

I didn't really like these cookies. They tasted like fruit bread, and the candy melted to the tray and broke a few cookies when I pulled them off. My mom agreed that they weren't the best, and my brother threw his away with my permission. My grandpa loves fruit candy, so we'll have to see what he thinks. If he likes them, he can keep them. If he doesn't, one of my parents can take them to work. 

"Reese's Pieces" Blondies

I might get the hang of this blogging thing someday. Today is not that day, but the first blog post is always hard to master, right? I had to use my computer and my cell phone to write this post because my phone had the pictures and the computer was easier to type on. I figured that part out, at least.

About the recipe: I have no idea where I got it. I know it was from the internet, but I can't remember exactly what website. I wasn't exactly thinking about a blog when I started the 'printed recipes' book. I can give you two options - Allrecipes.com or the Betty Crocker website. I'll keep better track eventually, and give links.

I used peanut butter chips instead of Reese's Pieces because Reese's Pieces are expensive and nobody has time for them anymore. (And my funds are so limited that my mom usually buys ingredients. I'm unemployed and can't deal with people, so of course I still live with my parents.)

First, a shot of all the ingredients lined up on a counter I forgot to clean:

(Yes, that is a duct-taped couch in the corner. One of our cats got stuck in there once and tried to get back in right after we got her out. That cat is the smart one.)

I like making things from scratch, but I'll be honest, I'm used to mixes, and I get overwhelmed with putting everything back as soon as I use it. Right after this picture was taken, I ended up dropping the brown sugar and spilling it everywhere, but my brother got the broom and the cats didn't investigate, so we cleaned it up without any funny accidents except for a creative almost-swear word.

The last thing the recipe said to add was the chocolate chips and the Reese's Pieces. As I mentioned, we had no Reese's Pieces. This is what it looked like instead...

Reese's Pieces would have made it more colorful, and I probably could have put in a few sprinkles, but I'd been working on this for about an hour and only just realized that I had forgotten to preheat the oven. I really didn't want to have more to do.

It wasn't easy to put it in the baking pan, either. I'm used to things just flowing from the mixing bowl into the pan, so the need for a spatula was another thing I didn't prepare for. The smell got my brother interested in the finished product, though, and he doesn't usually like chocolate and peanut butter together. So, a partial success, I guess.

It also looks a lot better when it's all mixed together.

When the oven had finished preheating, I baked it for half an hour, just like the directions said. I might have forgotten to turn the pan around, so one side ended up getting more cooked than the other, but the end result turned out ok.

The taste was a little off, but the only thing I didn't like about them was the peanut butter chips. My brother liked them, so it wasn't a bad recipe.

I'll probably try it again with actual Reese's Pieces, but until I can afford to buy them myself, I guess I'll just have to deal with the cheap peanut butter chips. As for this batch, they're not inedible. Picking out the peanut butter chips, they make a really good peanut butter cookie.