OMGSNAX!

val texted me this afternoon while sarah & i were off frolicking in forest park (frolicking WITH PURPOSE, of course) — she wanted to know if we were doing dinner, &, if so, if cupcakes could be arranged. i knew EXACTLY where to go for a recipe — the cupcake blog that i’d bookmarked some time ago.

now i’m not much of a cupcake fan — frosting squicks me out on principle & it’s just not my thing. i like cookies. but the idea took root that maybe i’d just only had gross store-bought cupcakes or ones made from a mix (never good), so i didn’t want to give the cupcake family short shrift in toto without trying it for myself.

INGREDIENTS
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs

METHOD
preheat oven to 350 degrees.

measure out everything but the eggs directly into your mixer bowl. mix on low speed just until incorporated. beat on high speed for 2 minutes. add eggs, beat on high speed again for 2 minutes.

measure out into cupcake pan lined with cupcake papers. a 2″ ice cream scoop works great for this. bake for about 15-20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. let cool slightly in the pan then transfer to a rack to cool completely before frosting.

CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM FROSTING INGREDIENTS
1 stick butter
1/2 cup cocoa
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
~1/4 cup milk

METHOD
beat butter on high for about 30 seconds until soft. add cocoa & 1 cup of sugar & beat until incorporated. add half of the milk & the remainder of sugar & beat until incorporated. continue to add milk until you get to the consistency you want.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
well, if you ignore the part where i got chocolate cupcake batter all over my shirt, the toaster, the counter, the floor, & my neck, i’d say this went pretty smoothly. (stupid handmixer. if i’d been at home we could’ve used my kitchenaid!) i forgot to get liners when i went to the store so that was a little bit annoying, but the cupcakes came out fine for the most part. the first batch was filled a little full, so they overflowed, but the second batch came out beautifully round & pillowy.

the buttercream was a little stiff — we actually added a little more milk than the recipe called for in an attempt to make it squishier, but ultimately i think it came down to a combination of thick frosting & poor tools — we used ziploc baggies with the tips cut off to “pipe” the frosting onto the cupcakes, but this was uneven & overly thick, resulting in cupcakes with entirely too much frosting on top.

also, & maybe this is just a function of cupcakes, i thought they were a little dry. dave agreed with me, though val & sarah & daniel thought they were just fine. i guess what i’m saying is that i’d be willing to try cupcakes again, but maybe not this recipe. i think something denser would make my mouth happier.

“Devil’s Food Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream” from cupcake bake shop by chockylit.

i bet your first thought here runs along the lines of, “NO MORE SQUASH RECIPES PLZTHX,” but i’ll have you know that these are christmas cookies, okay? they just happen to have the same name as that most delicious of squashes.

my grandma used to make upwards of a dozen different varieties of christmas cookies when i was younger, packing them in decorative tins for friends & relatives alike. she turned ninety this year & has scaled back production somewhat, but my sister & i are now in on the game, & spent this afternoon assisting with the butternuts — which happen to be my mom’s favorite.

INGREDIENTS
4 sticks (YES) butter, softened
4 cups flour
3 cups finely chopped pecans
10 tablespoons powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

METHOD
using a pastry blender or a large fork, combine all ingredients in a large bowl. divide dough into eighths, & from each second roll twelve to sixteen small cylinder-shaped cookies (rather than balls). bake at 350 for 20 minutes. immediately after removing from the oven, roll the cookies in more powdered sugar.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
deviations? HA! my grandma’s been making these for approximately one billion years at this point, so i hardly think deviations are in order. if you’re looking for some tricks of the trade, well, there’s not much to say about these cookies: they are ridiculously easy to make, so easy it’s almost embarrassing. five ingredients, one bowl, no mess — the cookies don’t even spread so you can fit close to 50 on a single cookie sheet! this recipe will yield close to 120 cookies if you play your cards right, which most people seem to think is a good thing. (i guess i should probably mention that i don’t usually enjoy powdered sugar OR pecans, so these cookies aren’t really my cup of tea; my sister, however, tried them this year for the first time since we were little kids & seemed to find them inoffensive enough — i mean, she DID eat about three of them while we were boxing them up!)

“Butternuts” from a really old recipe card in my grandma’s kitchen.

i continue to be camera-less in the kitchen, but this one was sarah’s baby anyway, who called me all a-twitter about some fresh pumpkin she had in her freezer. she did the internet research & discovered the recipe, so really, this is sarah’s guest spot on ye olde blogge of sir snaxalot.

INGREDIENTS
8 oz butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup pumpkin purée
1 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup raisins
2 1/2 cups flour

DIRECTIONS
preheat oven to 350 degrees. cream together butter & sugars until fluffy. beat in egg, vanilla, & pumpkin. in a separate bowl, mix together the oats, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, raisins, & flour. stir into pumpkin mixture.

drop cookies by the heaping teaspoonful on to cookie sheets covered with parchment paper. bake 12 to 15 minutes or until slightly browned around edges.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
raisins: for the last time, no.

the cookies came together okay as far as looking & acting like normal cookies — as i’ve no doubt mentioned before, i’ve never really had any problems getting my baking to come together — but they were hugely disappointing. for one thing, we were pretty much SOL on the pumpkinny flavor, which, okay, i have no idea what THAT is all about. for another, these cookies were blandsville. halfway through, sarah & i added an extra half cup of pumpkin purée, but you couldn’t even tell the difference.

i’ve heard that fresh pumpkin purée — like, from carving pumpkins — isn’t all that flavorful, so maybe that was the problem here, but i’ll be damned if i waste cookie ingredients on this recipe again.

no one even finished the leftovers.

“Pumpkin Cookies” via allrecipes.com