7.30.10 Chocolate-Espresso Snowcaps

Mai forgot to take pictures part 2.

And maybe that's a good thing.  Because these cookies looked like they had the plague.

These cookies are essentially a chocolate version of Mexican wedding cookies/Russian tea cakes.  You have to put together the dough beforehand because it's so soft.  I went a little baking high, so I ended up making the dough right after baking the outrageous chocolate cookies.  Once all the ingredients were combined, I wrapped the dough in plastic, rolled it out with a beer bottle, and threw it in the fridge for a couple of days until all of the previous cookies were gone.

After taking the dough out of the fridge, I enlisted Sarah and Megan to make small balls out of chunks of dough.  As the comments on Martha's websites said, the dough started melting immediately.  Their hands looked like they had been playing with dirt outside.  The balls were then rolled in powdered sugar and then set onto cookie sheets.

The cookies were supposed to come out looking cracked; I just didn't expect that the cracks would come out so... odd.  In place of nice, narrow lines, the brown areas of my cookies were thick so the white areas came out in patches.  Hence, "plagued."

Still, these cookies were delicious.  The combination of chocolate+coffee is absolutely addictive.  Some of the powdered sugar also ended up getting caramelized, especially on the bottom, giving the cookies some crunch.  The cookie is also moist, dense, and extremely chocolate-y.

I would definitely make these again, but maybe in the winter when I have cold, frozen hands so that the dough won't melt in my hands!

recipe from marthastewart.com

7.30.10 Outrageous Chocolate Cookies

Mai forgot to take pictures part 1.

Honestly, I don't remember much about these cookies.  I just remember that Mallory thought that I had baked them before.  As it turns out, I baked something VERY similar; but, not quite.  They were good because they had cocoa, melted chocolate, and chocolate chips in them (triple chocolate attack!).  Otherwise, nothing special.

recipe from marthastewart.com

7.9.10 Banana Walnut Bread

recipe by foodnetwork kitchens from foodnetwork.com

7.4.10 Outrageous Brownies

I love Ina Garten. She's so cute! She's such a nice, sweet, plump lady. That makes it sound like I want to eat her, but that's not what I mean. How can you not like her? Plus, she gets extra points in my mind for not being afraid of butter, even if the amount she uses can be a bit excessive at times.

I was excited to try out this recipe. I saw it on tastespotting and Smitten Kitchen, and everyone was raving about it. The only problem was that the recipe makes a lot, which means that I need a lot of people to eat it. So, when I was invited to a 4th of July bbq, I knew I had to make it.