Recipe: Red Velvet Cookies

One of my favorite cakes...other than chocolate...was always Red Velvet, which is a close cousin of chocolate, if you didn't know. And as per request from a good friend of mine (because apparently I owed her cookies), here's a recipe for  to-die-for Red Velvet Cookies!

Red Velvet Cookies

makes 36 cookies

What you will need:

• 3 cups + 2 tbsp all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter (room temp)*
• 1 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs (room temp)
• 2 tbsp milk
• 3 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp red food coloring
• 2 cup white chocolate chips**

*if using salted butter, omit 1/2 tsp salt

**can substitute with regular chocolate chips or anything you want!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a separate medium-large bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment (a hand mixer will work fine), cream butter on high until smooth and creamy. About 1 minute. Remember to scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl whenever you need to. 

On medium speed, beat in your granulated sugar and brown sugar until combined. Then beat in your eggs, milk, and vanilla.

Add your food coloring and mix until there are no longer any streaks of color (or no color) visible. The red color should now be incredibly intense and the dough should still be quite runny, however feel free to add more food coloring to intensify the color even more if you'd like.

Pour in your dry ingredients. With your mixer on low, mix your dough until just combined. You do not want to over mix.

Still on low speed or by hand, mix in your white chocolate chips until thoroughly visible throughout your dough. Your dough will still be rather sticky, so cover the bowl with plastic wrap or aluminum foil and refrigerate for AT LEAST an hour. THIS IS MANDATORY or your dough will be way too soft.

Prepare two baking sheets and line them with either parchment paper or silicon mats. Gather 1 - 1 1/2 tbsp of dough and roll into a ball. Place them on your baking sheet about 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake for 10-13 minutes.

When you take them out of the oven, they would have only spread just a bit. Using your clean fingers or the back of a spoon and gently flatten them while they are still hot. Also while they're still hot, use some extra white chocolate chips and push them into the top. This gives a little more contrast to the red cookie. Have them cool on the cookie sheet for about 5-10 minutes, then transfer them onto a wire rack to cool completely.

I swear, these are some of the best things I have ever made. They're basically a little cake in cookie form; aka heaven on earth (so my coworker says). 

...you're welcome Hilary <3 

Recipe: White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

The weather has been pretty gloomy around here lately. It's wet and rainy, but this is my kind of weather! I know not everyone's crazy about rain showers and the end of summer, but that's okay because I have the perfect pick-me-up. Who doesn't love White Chocolate Macadamia Nut cookies?!

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

makes 24 cookies

You will need:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) *unsalted butter (room temp)
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs (room temp)
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup coarsely chopped salted macadamia nuts

*If you do not have unsalted butter, it may be substituted with regular butter. However, omit the 1/2 tsp of salt.

Begin by preheating your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon mats.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

Cream together your butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy. It should look something like this. Make sure to use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.

Add your eggs, vanilla extract, and almond extract. Mix until well combined. Your mixture should loosen up a lot and become runny.

Add your flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. You do not want to over-mix. The dough should start forming right away and on it's own. Once combined, scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl.

Add the white chocolate chips and coarsely chopped macadamia nuts. Fold them in with a rubber spatula until they are thoroughly incorporated within your dough.

Gather two tablespoons of dough into a ball and tear it in half. Place the torn side of one half face down onto your lined cookie sheet, and place the other half on top with the torn side facing up, like shown above. These are rather large cookies so place them about 2 inches apart for spreading.

Bake your cookies for 12-13 minutes or until the edges are slightly golden. They will remain puffed up and appear undone when you take them out of the oven. Let them sit on the cookie sheet to cool for 10-15 minutes. The cookies' residual heat will finish off the insides and it will begin to flatten out. Transfer them onto a wire rack to finish cooling (but they taste the best when warm).

Quite a few people have been asking me for these lately, so I'm glad I finally found the time to make them!

The original recipe is not mine and I found it here. However, I did alter the ratios slightly and adjusted the proportions to fit my needs.

This is probably one of my favorite cookies to make and from what I've heard it's a lot of my friend's favorite too hehe.

Recipe: Mini Banana Nutella Tarts

If you have never had a Banana Nutella sandwich at 2am, then you have not lived. Here I'm sharing with you, something even better...Mini Banana Nutella Tarts! The best midnight...or 2am snack.

I originally found this recipe for Jam Tarts, but I'm not necessarily a Jam/Jelly kind of person so then I thought, "Hey, why not use bananas and Nutella instead"?! The creativity was flowing so I ran into the kitchen and got started.

Mini Banana Nutella Tarts
with caramelized bananas

makes about 24

Pastry Crust:

• 10 tbsp unsalted butter (room temp.)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg (room temp.)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• about 1/2 cup Nutella

Caramelized Bananas

• 2-3 ripe, but firm bananas
• 1 1/2 tbsp butter
• 3-5 tbsp granulated sugar
• Fresh lemon juice

To begin the pastry crust, attach a paddle attachment to your stand mixer (a hand mixer will work fine), and cream together the butter and 1/2 cup of sugar on medium/high speed until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Be sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl as needed.

Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined. Your mixture may look slightly curdled, but this is okay. Remember to scrape your bowl!

In a separate bowl, whisk together your flour, baking powder, and salt.

Add the flour to your mixture and beat, starting on low speed, until just incorporated. (You want to start on a low speed so flour doesn't explode in your face. You can increase the speed after a few seconds.) A ball of dough should form rather quickly so you don't want to over-mix it when it's not needed. 

As you take the dough out of the mixing bowl, it should be in pieces, so on your clean counter (you can lightly dust your counter with flour if you'd like but it isn't necessary), briefly knead the pieces together and split it in half.

Wrap the two parts in plastic wrap and place them in the fridge to chill about 45 minutes to an hour. However, if you feel that your dough is firm enough, you can proceed to roll it out. You can tell if your dough isn't firm enough if it cracks while you're rolling it out. 

Place your first ball of dough in between two large pieces of parchment or wax paper and roll out until about 1/8in thick. To prevent the paper from sliding on the counter, I put a silicon mat underneath (as seen in the picture earlier), but a slightly damp towel will work just fine. Be sure to check both sides of the dough to ensure that there are no wrinkles or cracks. Repeat with the second ball of dough. At this time, chilling your dough for about 45min to an hour is NECESSARY. You'll be handling it a lot from now on so you'll definitely want to reduce the chances of cracking. 

While the dough is chilling, this is a great time to work on the caramelized bananas! Cut your bananas into slices about 1/8in thick and place them in a shallow dish. Add your lemon juice, just enough to lightly coat the bananas. You won't be able to taste the lemon later on, this is just to prevent the bananas from browning.

In a large saucepan on high heat, melt your 1tbsp of butter until it bubbles. Add your bananas and toss until they're all coated in butter. Still on high heat, sprinkle your sugar over the top of the bananas and continue tossing until they caramelize.

Most of the butter should reduce down into a thick paste. (At this point my house smelled AMAZING.) Strain out excess butter and set the caramelized bananas aside to reach room temperature. 

Now is a good time to preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

When your dough has finished chilling, pull the first sheet out and begin cutting out your circles (or in my case, scalloped circles). Since these are miniature tarts, a 2 1/2 inch cookie cutter will suffice.

Begin placing your dough into a miniature muffin pan (can be purchased at most craft/baking stores). 

Be gentle, because the dough can easily crack. If this happens, you can simply patch it up with a little bit of extra dough. If your dough gets too soft to handle, put it back in the fridge for another 20 minutes or so. 

I had to do this repeatedly since my kitchen was so hot...

Place your bananas at the bottom of each tart. One slice of banana per tart should be perfect.

Fill a Ziploc bag with the Nutella and snip off a small piece of the corner. This makes filling the tarts a lot quicker and neater. Tap the muffin pan on a flat surface a few times to flatten out the Nutella as well as releasing any air bubbles. 

Bake for 12-14 minutes or until the edges of the pastry are a nice golden brown. You will notice some of the caramelized banana bubble around the Nutella, but that's okay. Let them sit in the pan to cool for about 10 minutes. Afterward, use a small knife or spatula to take your mini tarts out and place them on a wire rack to finish cooling.

Top them off with a little more of that caramelized banana and you're good to go! And just FYI, these taste THE BEST when they're warm out of the oven.

The Nutella set up really nicely after being baked and the caramelized bananas tasted amazing. The Nutella and banana flavors balanced well and the pastry crust pulled it all together.

I'm quite proud of myself this time around and just saying, my coworkers loved these heheh. Let me know if you try this out and thanks for reading!

Cataloging my Addiction: Fall/Winter Pickups (pt. 2)

I've previously featured my clothing items in my last post,"Fall/Winter Pickups (pt. 1)", so if you haven't seen it already, go check it out! (And I apologize in advance for not taking better care of my shoes!)
 

Black satchel: Forever21

During the holidays, Forever21 was having an amazing 50% off all bags and shoes. I've been looking for a good bag for a while; something with structure and a sleek appearance. The shoulder strap is a good length and is adjustable and the bag itself is just big enough to hold everything I need (i.e. wallet, keys, water, lip balm, etc.).

Wedged platform booties: Charlotte Russe

Now, I love Charlotte Russe shoes, but I actually somewhat regret buying these... It was during their BOGO for $5 on Black Friday, and when I couldn't find the other pair that I wanted, I bought these anyways. Shame on me for impulse shopping...

Black "Desert Cool Booties": Forever21

Me and a friend went down to the Strip to look around the Forever21 at Fashion Show Mall. I already had my eyes on the chocolate colored pair of these shoes online, but of course they were out of my size in-store...but luckily, I ran into these black ones - the LAST size 6 they had, and to my surprise, all shoes in the store were 50% and I snagged these for 13 bucks!

Chocolate "Desert Cool Booties": Forever21

After getting the black ones, I knew I just had to have the chocolate ones too. I need more brown shoes anyways, all my shoes are black! In fact, I hadn't even made it home before I ordered these online at, of all places, Taco Bell... but sadly, the 50% off shoes deal wasn't online.

Black wedged booties: Target

It was my mom who actually got me these shoes at Target for only $10! I actually wear these quite often. They're comfortable enough to wear to school on a regular basis without killing my feet, so that's a plus.

Tan wedged booties: Target

Just like the previous pair, my mom also got these for me at Target, and with the original price being $30 each, $20 total for both pairs is practically a steal. 

Recipe: Chocolate Chiffon Cake

A friend of mine recently asked me to make a cake for his cousin's birthday, and I was more than happy to commission a cake for him. I'm always looking for an excuse to bake keke. After chatting a bit, my options came down to either Red Velvet or Chocolate, but you really can't go wrong with Chocolate. I thought that I'd step it up a notch and make a Chocolate Chiffon cake, a lighter, fluffier chocolate cake, so I went searching for a good recipe and I came across this one. (This site is actually one of the first places I go for baking inspiration and recipes.) Although the ingredients are all the same, I did a few things slightly differently.

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

with Cream Cheese Frosting and Strawberries

• 6 egg yolks
• 7 egg whites
• 2 cups cake flour (sifted)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar (split into 2 parts of 3/4 cups)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup oil (canola, corn, or vegetable)
• 3/4 water
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups (estimated) strawberries (or other fruit of your choice)

Begin by preheating the oven to 325 degrees. 

In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, the first 3/4 cups of sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Well in dry ingredients

In another bowl take your egg yolks, oil, water, and vanilla and whisk them together. Then take your dry ingredients, make a well in the center, and add in the wet ingredients you just mixed. The well in the center of your dry ingredients should look like the picture on the left. Mix the wet and dry ingredients until smooth and completely combined and scrape the sides as you go to ensure that everything is mixed well. 


With either a stand mixer with a whisk attachment or a hand mixer in a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until it becomes white and foamy, then gradually begin to add the last of the sugar (3/4 cups) and continue beating until you get almost stiff peaks. You can also add 1/2 tsp cream of tartar or a couple drops of lemon juice in order to make sure you don't over beat the egg whites, but this is not necessary.

Using a large rubber spatula, gently fold in your egg white mixture into the chocolate batter in two or three parts until just combined, because you don't want to take all of the air out of the batter or it'll take away the cake's fluffiness and delicate texture. As you fold, you should be able to feel the lightness of the batter.

The original recipe calls for you to pour the batter into an ungreased tube/bundt pan, however for the purpose of making a more traditional-looking birthday cake, I decided to use two 9-in pans instead and greased them using a non-stick baking spray (different from non-stick cooking sprays, but they can work too).

Place them in the 350 degree oven and bake for 35 minutes. Keep in mind that this time could be different for your oven. You'll know that they're finished baking when you insert a wooden skewer and it comes out clean. Set the pans on a cooling rack for 15-30 minutes, then flip them to remove the cakes. The cake should have shrunk a little bit (as seen below) and should come out easily. 

Allow the cake to completely cool for at least 1-2 hours, in which time we can make the cream cheese frosting.

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter (room temperature)
• 2 8oz packs cream cheese (room temperature)
• 2-6 cups confectioner's sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, or a hand mixer in a separate bowl, beat together the room temp. butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Add vanilla and continue to mix until combined. Mix in confectioner's sugar, a cup at a time, until your desired sweetness is achieved. I only used 2 cups confectioner's sugar because I, personally, don't like super sweet frosting. Mix until powdered sugar is combined. If your frosting is still lumpy, don't worry, just keep mixing until completely smooth which could range from 5-10 minutes depending how long you had your butter and cream cheese sit out (which in my case, wasn't very long). Let your completed frosting sit out at room temperature. Room temperature cream cheese frosting will be easier to spread later on.

When the cake is completely cooled, level out the rounded cake tops. If you have extraordinary knife skills, feel free to use a knife, but if you're like me, I'd use a nifty tool called a cake leveler (great name, huh?). Set the wire to the desired height (I set the one I used to 5), place the legs on a flat surface leveled with the cake and basically cut off the top by sawing against the flat surface. It's a pretty great contraption and definitely gets the job done. 

Once you've got your two even layers, lay the first one on a cardboard cake round. I placed the cardboard round on a Lazy Susan and then on a cake stand to make icing the cake easier. Then is when I start washing and cutting the strawberries into thin slices. Place them onto a paper towel to soak up any extra moisture. You don't want water getting into the frosting. You may or may not use all of the strawberries.

When your strawberries are cut, spread out a thin layer of frosting on your first layer. It doesn't have to be super neat. Place your strawberries onto the frosting then gently lay your second layer of cake on top and align them.

Apply a thicker layer of frosting on top and sides and frost entire cake. I used an offset spatula for this. Keep in mind, I have never completely frosted a cake before this, so clearly I am no professional, but I guess for a first time, my results were decent.

I was pleased with the top of my cake because it turned out pretty smooth. I can't really say the same about the sides, but the strawberry garnish made it much better. Place the strawberries how you want on your cake and you're finished!

And I have received word that my cake was a hit! Thanks to my very first "clients" and happy birthday!