Category Archives: Baking

Good morning, kittens!  I know, so early.  But today’s post is my contribution to Be a Good Cookie Week.

Earlier this year, Kirsten shared with us that she lost her sister, Cheryl, to cancer at an early age.  As the fall progressed (and with the holidays right around the corner) she mentioned to Allison, Jeanne, Mads, Megan and I that she was thinking about doing a little something to raise awareness for children’s cancer through her blog.

She had only just pressed the send button when the rest of us piled on board.  Because friends do not let friends walk that path alone.  We are grandmothers, mothers, and someday-mothers.  Aunts, sisters, daughters and nieces.  Childhood cancers are not a one person battle.

The cause that is close to her heart is Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, founded by Gretchen Holt-Witt.  Gretchen is a mother who watched her son Liam battle a cancer of the nervous system.  Getting even with cancer instead of remaining powerless and angry, Gretchen organized a bake sale.  Over the course of three weeks, she and the individuals who volunteered to help her in this fight for funding of pediatric cancer therapy research moved 96,000 cookies for a total of $400,000.

A movement was born.

When I re-read the post that Kirsten wrote, introducing us to this cause, one number really hit home for me.

Her sister, Cheryl, would have been 24 years old this year.

I am 24 years old this year.

It is a fact that I am totally unable to make any sense of.

The writing is on the wall.

Any age is too soon, but we cannot continue to let cancer take the lives our young.

Before we get started, I wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page.

When I read about other bloggers in the kitchen, I have a very clear-cut vision of what it must look like.

Their hair is done, they’re wearing a camera-ready outfit.  They never get ingredients on their clothes.  Their kitchens are immaculate.

Just so we’re all on the same page, this is what I look like when I impulsively decide to begin my baking immediately after an early breakfast on a Sunday morning.

Right?  Right.

For my batch of heaven, I decided to go with the Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies from the CFKC Best Bake Sale Cookbook.

Making these was the perfect choice, because it’s something that’s on my 25 by 25 list and the first recipe I tried was…unimpressive.

This definitely righted that wrong.

The recipe asked me to grind the oats in my food processor.  Since I only made a half-batch, that seemed really excessive.  So I turned to my immersion blender instead.  God I love that thing.  You hook it up, do what you need to do and at the end, you only have a blender and a cup to clean.  It is so beyond easy.

I had already started mixing and dumping things by the time I realized I needed to start thinking like a food blogger and get snapping.  So here’s my effort.

In case you actually wanted to know what’s hiding in that green bowl, it was sugar.  Brown and white.

Amen.

I think I was supposed to use 1.5 cups of chocolate chips, but this ended up being more like…2.  How did this happen?  It’s very simple, really.  I had two open bags of chocolate chips floating around in my pantry and I wanted nothing more than to be rid of them both.  The ratio of chips to actual dough may or may not have been 1:1.

And it was good.

After wrasslin’ with parchment paper for the better part of 10 minutes, only to realize that it’s only necessary if you want to keep your baking sheets looking nice, I ditched the stuff and got my cookies in the oven.

Amen.

The finished product.  Behold.

Truthfully, I didn’t know that cookies like this could come out of my kitchen.

Once I’m done surviving the nine dozen cookies I need to action for a work cookie exchange next week, I’ll be pulling this recipe out again.

Only next time?  I’ll be making the full-batch instead of the half.

And don’t forget, the reindeer games are not over yet!

Monday – Kirsten from Comfortably Domestic
Tuesday – Jeanne from Inside NanaBread’s Head
Wednesday – Megan from Wanna Be A Country Clever
Thursday – Kat from Tenaciously Yours,
Friday – Mads from La Petite Pancake
Saturday – Allison from Decadent Philistines Save the World

Also, make sure to check out Kirsten and Jeanne’s giveaways!

What do you look like when you’re in the middle of some serious baking?

What is your go-to recipe for perfect cookies?

Once upon a time (way back in the middle of the summer), six bloggers put their heads together and decided that something needed to be done about the fact that they couldn’t actually spend time in the kitchen together.

So they put on their aprons and decided to bake together anyway.

And the idea for Pie Week was born.

Y’all know from the 25 by 25 that #6 Learn how to bake a pie crust from scratch, is something I’ve wanted to needed to tackle.  So the moment that we agreed on Pie as The Theme, I did a little happy dance.

The only requirement for our week of festive Reindeer Games?  We all had to use Kirsten’s No Excuses Pie Crust.

Kirsten Believes In Butter and I Do Too so her crust as Our Standard was a perfect starting point.

Plus, with a name like “No Excuses” instead of Martha Stewart’s more intimidatingly named Pate Brisee, I was sold on the fact that I might actually be able to…make it.

After reviewing the recipe more than a handful of times (it was probably more like 20), I set the scene.  I froze my butter, iced my water down and pulled out the dough blade for my food processor.

The first rule of boldly going into the unknown: Be Prepared.

And as a reward for my efforts, I was greeted with this lovely sight…

Not one crust, but two crusts!

By the way, did you know how insane it is to try to photograph your food while you’re making it?  I found myself completely and utterly unprepared and at a loss.

As it turns out, those cooking bloggers are NOT playing around.

For the filling, I used the recipe from the back of the store brand pumpkin puree can.  There was no recipe development or “tweaking.”  I played it safe and trusted The Man.

Andy Warhol, beware.

Did you know that Pumpkin Pie is a custard pie?

Me neither.

Until I cracked the eggs in, gave the mixture a whirl with my hand mixture and proceeded to be astonished by the vast quantity of filling I had managed to produce in such a short span of time.

Originally I was planning on making mini-pies in a muffin tin.  So cute, right?  But once I got a good look at my pie filling and my crust, one regular-sized pie seemed like the appropriate choice.

So I pulled out Marcus’ Baube’s pie plate (which I had given absolutely no thought to until that very moment in time), pressed the crust into it and got baking.

The spicy-sweet scent that permeated the house was unbelievable.  Even Marcus: Dessert Hater remarked on how wonderful it was.

And after an hour, the finished product.

Obviously I spent a lot of time trying to beautify the edges of the crust.

When it came time to devour it, I brought it over to my parents’ house as an offering to accompany the beer tasting we did on Sunday evening.  Mom offered to action a batch of homemade whipped cream to go with it, but we all agreed that there’s a certain je ne sais quoi to the canned stuff.

Perhaps the best discovery to come from all of this is the fact that in our house it can now be Thanksgiving all year long.

You may now refer to me as Kat: Pie Baking Survivor.

Amen.

And because the buck does not stop here, you absolutely have to get to know my fellow partners in crime!

Last but not least, our progress thus far…

Pie Week, Day 1 – click here to see Kirsten’s Monday entry – Apple Tart with a Cheddar Streusel Topping.  Marcus loves apples and Marcus loves cheese so this is definitely one I’ll be springing on him.

Pie Week, Day 2 – click here to see Jeanne’s Tuesday extravaganza – Bananas Foster Fried Pies.  I SLAY MYSELF.

Up Next: Mads from La Petite Pancake tackles a fruity, multi-berry confection.  Will I wish I were right there with her in her California kitchen?  Yes.

What is your favorite kind of pie?

p.s. Edited to add, I’m taking part in the Loving the Pie party!

Want to know more?  Come join Love the Pie with TidyMom  sponsored by Cherokee USA, Le Creuset, Wilton, Bags by Bloom and  Harvard Common Press.