But whenever I’m confronted with a cupcake (or, let’s be honest, cake on the whole), I can’t keep up the pretense.

I don’t know who came up with the idea of cupcakes but I do want to know if they were knighted (or perhaps sainted). You can totally fool yourself into thinking that eating two is okay. They’re individual-sized. Like cookies. Two cookies are always okay. So two cupcakes are always okay too.

And these cupcakes, the ones Vi makes that suck Joe deeper into the vortex of the Winters girls, are totally a two-cupcake-a-go kind. And most apropos, this recipe comes from a friend of mine in The ’Burg. So they’re authentic ’Burg cupcakes.

Try ’em, like ’em, and maybe Joe will appear.

Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes

• Prep Time

  30

• Cook Time

  15-20

Ingredients

• Cupcake:
• 1 Box Yellow Cake Mix
• 4 Eggs
• ¾ Cup Vegetable Oil
• ½ Cup Water
• 8 oz. Good Dark Chocolate, chopped (I suggest using Lindt, they make to-die-for dark chocolate but Ghirardelli works too).
• Frosting:
• 1 Cup Unsalted Butter, softened
• 2 ½ Cups Powdered Sugar, sifted
• ½ Vanilla Bean or ¼ teaspoon Vanilla Bean Paste
• ½ Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 Tablespoon Milk

How to do it…

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin cups with paper liners.
2. Now combine the cake mix, oil and water. Add eggs one at a time. Mix until all is incorporated, two to three minutes. Stir in the chopped chocolate. Now divvy up this batter into the lined muffin cups. Put them in the oven and back for 15-20 minutes but keep checking them, it’d be a shame for these bad boys to get burned.
3. Take them out, let them cool and get on with your frosting.
4. Beat the butter until it gets light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar in a few goes (not all at once). After you have the powdered sugar in, add the milk and beat for 2-3 minutes.
5. If you’re using a vanilla bean pod, split it in half lengthwise and scrape out the beans in the pod. Add these beans and extract to the bowl (and if you’re using the paste, just add the ¼ teaspoon of the paste to the bowl - and I suggest finding the paste, which I get at Sur La Table because those pods are fiddly and I'm not a fan of fiddly). Beat this on high until the vanilla gets incorporated and the frosting is fluffy.
6. If you put the beaters in the sink without licking them, I may have to hurt you.
7. Scrape every last smidgeon of that frosting out of the bowl and either eat it or frost a cupcake with it. I’d try to frost the cupcakes first.
8. As you bite in, take a minute to think of Joe. And then send me your happy vibes.

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And these cookies are a double whammy of goodness because first, my mom made them for us every year at Christmas and they are my favoritest cookie EVER! And second, this is my Gramma Moutaw’s recipe.

So I get the goodness of memories of Mom making them, helping Mom make them, making them now for my family and my gramma all rolled into one.

In other words, obviously, they had to be put in a book.

And also obviously, I have to share this awesomeness.

Yeast Crescents

• Prep Time

  15/30

• Cook Time

  10-15

• Serves

  A Ton

Ingredients

• Cookie:
• 4 cups Flour
• ½ cup Sugar
• ¼ teaspoon Salt
• 1 Package Dry Yeast
• ¼ cup Warm Water
• ¼ cup Melted Butter
• 1 cup Sour Cream
• 2 Eggs, lightly beaten
• Filling:
• 1 cup Sugar
• 4 teaspoons Cinnamon
• More Melted Butter
• Garnish:
• Powdered Sugar for finish

How to do it…

1. Now start this mother up by melting butter and then leaving it to cool for a bit while you sift the flour, sugar and salt together in a big bowl. In another bowl, mix eggs and sour cream with cooled butter and then beat. Just to say, either slow melt your butter in the microwave and let it rest or melt in a pan and let it rest a long while or right now you’ll have on your hands some sour cream and butter with cooked egg bits in. That’s no good. So yeah, let the butter cool.
2. Soften yeast in H2O then add to the butter mixture and combine. Add the liquid to the flour mixture and then get your hands in there and knead until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Cover this in some plastic wrap and store in the fridge overnight or for six hours.
3. Preheat oven to 375° (190° C)
4. Divide dough into four parts. I usually pull the dough out of the bowl, slap it on a floured surface, cut a knife down the middle of the ball, twist and do it the other way, boom and boom, and then take a quarter of the dough to work, putting the other three parts aside.
5. Now, get on with making your filling mixture (that is, just combine the sugar and cinnamon and voilà: filling mixture) and melting the butter.
6. Using a rolling pin, on that floured surface, roll into a circle ¼" thick (or maybe a little thinner, you be the judge). Brush liberally with melted butter and sprinkle with filling mixture.
7. Cut that circle into wedges (like you're slicing a pie). My recipe from Mom says “twelve wedges” but I just cut them so the very outside ends are cookie size. They’re never uniform. This isn’t an Oreo. Paul Hollywood would lose his mind at this recipe. It's not meant to be perfect. This is homemade, baby! If you’re feeling big cookie, cut fewer wedges. If you’re thinking baby cookie, cut more. Or mix it up. Your call. Roll wedges from the outside in to the point making a crescent shape.
8. Bake these on a cookie sheet until very lightly brown. Honestly, I’ve no idea how long to bake these. My recipe from Mom says “cook until brown.” But they’re no good “brown.” They’re good lightly brown. I’d start checking at eight minutes just because, well, no way will they cook in that time but you’ll have a sense of when to pull them out.
9. And additional note here: the butter and sugar filling will ooze out while baking. I don’t grease my pans because the butter usually makes the rest easy to lift off, something I scrape away before putting another batch on to bake so I won’t get burnt on filling all over my baking tray. So I can’t share whether things will go awry or not if you grease your pans. That said, beware the ooze and remember to scrape!
10. Finish those up with a sprinkle with powdered sugar. I usually put the powdered sugar in a sifter or a mesh-topped canister to give it a light touch.
11. After that, try not to shove ten of them in your mouth all at once. Put them in a tin. Allow your family to have some. Share the love.

Notes

Important note: You either need an extra six hours to make these or you need to make the dough the day before so it can rest. It sucks to forget that and then get your groove on for Yeast Crescents, start to get sorted to make them at six o’clock at night and then find out you have to carve out time the next day to finish them. So allow me to save you a lot of heartbreak right off the bat.

This makes a ton of cookies.

We still used to double the recipe.

I wouldn’t dream of making these at any time but Christmas. But create your own traditions with them. My Gramma Moutaw and Mom would love it if you did.

The post Yeast Crescents appeared first on Kristen Ashley.

I just know that every Christmas, Mom made these. Then after I left home, every Christmas, I made them…until I moved to England and couldn’t get Hershey’s kisses.

I missed them.

Chocolate Filled Snowballs

• Prep Time

  60

• Cook Time

  12

Ingredients

• 1 cup Margarine (in a shocker, butter isn’t so good)
• ½ cup Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 2 cup Flour
• 1 cup Chopped Walnuts (chop ’em fine!)
• 1 Package Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses
• Powdered Sugar

How to do it…

1. Beat margarine, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add flour and nuts and blend well. Chill for 30 minutes (or more!).
2. Preheat oven to 375° F (190° C).
3. Remove kisses from the foil. Shape about 1 teaspoon of dough around the each kiss, covering kiss completely. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 12 minutes or until set but NOT BROWN. While still warm, roll in powdered sugar.

Notes

Leave extra time to chill between making and baking - at least 30 minutes but more is better!

Now, if you can’t get Hershey’s kisses, I don’t know what to say. I didn’t try them with anything else and as they’re “snowballs,” whatever chocolate you use should be round so you can form the balls. But it’s worth it to try with whatever. The dough is nutty goodness and with the surprise chocolate center...oh my! It can be a Merry Christmas all year round!

The post Chocolate Filled Snowballs appeared first on Kristen Ashley.

And last, my gramma could COOK!

We lived in Indiana and she lived in California so we didn’t see her often. But I remember, every time we saw her, it was a good time full of laughter, love, warmth…and food.

This is one of several of my favorite recipes of hers. The cake is moist chocolate/cherry deliciousness. No, this cake is moist, chocolate/cherry, marzipan-ish freaking amazingness.

And now I give it to you!

Gramma Moutaw’s Chocolate Maraschino Cherry Cake

• Prep Time

  30

• Cook Time

  30

Ingredients

• Cake:
• 1 cup Sugar
• ½ cup Shortening (or Trex for those in the UK)
• 1½ cup Flour
• 1 ounce Square Plain Chocolate, melted
• 1 Jar (4 oz) Maraschino Cherries
• ½ cup Maraschino Cherry Juice
• ½ cup Chopped Nuts (optional, I never use these)
• 1 Egg
• 1 cup Buttermilk or Single Cream
• 2 teaspoon Soda
• 1/8 t Salt
• Icing:
• ½ cup Powdered Sugar (be prepared to need more)
• 1/3 C Butter
• 1 Egg
• 1 t Vanilla
• 1 ounce Square Plain Chocolate, melted
• Pinch Salt

How to do it…

1. The hilariousness of this is that the instructions are simple. No faffing about. Just mix ingredients together and bake at 350°F in a greased and floured 8" square pan. That's it!
2. Now, if you don't know how to test a cake for done-ness, you can either get a cake tester which has a tip that changes color when inserted into the center of the cake and it tells you when it's done. Or, less fancy, you can use a toothpick to insert in the center of the cake, and when it comes out clean (no liquidy-dough on the end), it's done. Depending on ovens, you may want to start testing this at around 20-25 minutes, but it'll probably take longer.
3. As for the icing: Cream sugar and butter, add egg, and salt. Add melted chocolate and vanilla then ice the yummy cake! And I would recommend icing the cake when it's still a bit warm. I'll just say here it may seem weird that there's an egg in this and there's no cooking, however, the better you beat this and with the chemical components of the other stuff, as far as I know, it's safe.

The post Gramma Moutaw’s Chocolate Maraschino Cherry Cake appeared first on Kristen Ashley.

What is the greatest American cookie?

My vote: The Snickerdoodle.

Now, in the UK, they call cookies “biscuits.” They also call them cookies but mostly they clarify this with “American” before the use of the word “cookie.” After copious sampling, I cannot really tell you the difference between a “biscuit” and a “cookie” except that, in the UK, biscuits are store bought (and crunchy) and American cookies are usually fresh from the bakery (and soft). And mostly your choices are chocolate chip, chocolate chocolate chip, white chocolate chip and maybe, if someone is feeling adventurous, oatmeal.

In other words, the Brits do not know of the Snickerdoodle.

Whereas the United States of America is a custard wasteland and really should embrace all the beauty that is custard, the United Kingdom (and the rest of the world) needs to be introduced to the Snickerdoodle. And this I will do right now. It is my public service for the day, or even the decade.

See, before I left the UK I had friends over and made Snickerdoodles for dessert. Except for MM, none of them had ever tasted them. After snarfing down the first four stacks of cookies I generously (I thought) presented, it was requested that I replenish them. I did this, of course, being the awesome hostess I am. However, I did it with a heavy heart seeing as my friends eating all my Snickerdoodles meant, when they left, for the next few days I couldn’t snarf down the remainder.

So I know this will be popular because I’ve tested this theory.

All my American brethren, you already have this recipe. For my English friends, this is my gift to you.

Snickerdoodles

• Prep Time

  20

• Cook Time

  8-10

• Serves

  4-5 Dozen

Ingredients

• Cookie:
• 2 ¾ cups All-Purpose Flour
• ½ teaspoon Salt
• 2 teaspoons Baking Powder (I have used soda or bicarb so don’t worry if you don’t have powder)
• 1 cup Butter, room temperature
• 1 ½ cups White Sugar
• 2 large Eggs
• 1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
• Coating:
• 1/3 cup White Sugar
• 2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon

How to do it…

1. In a large bowl, combine your dry ingredients by whisking together the flour, salt and baking powder.
2. Hopefully you have a fabulous KitchenAid mixer like I do, and if you do, in that (or if you don’t, use a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. It’s a good idea between eggs and then before the next step to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Now, add the vanilla extract. Then it’s time to add the flour mixture (I do this in two or three goes, beating it in fully then adding more after more scraping - I don't know why I do this, it is probably totally unnecessary, but it makes me feel like somewhat of a cookie baker goddess, so I do it). Now beat this until you have a smooth dough.
3. At this point, cover the dough and pop it in the fridge until it is firm (about one to two hours, but if you're in a rush, you could get away with thirty minutes). As a side note: I would definitely give the dough fridge time for when you form the cookies, it will be easier/less sticky to work with and it will form nicer cookies and spread less when they bake. I suppose you could be lazy and not do this, though I have never been lazy whilst making Snickerdoodles (I don’t mess around with cookies, they have my avid attention and I give them all my energy), so I cannot say what will happen if you do.
4. Once the dough is chilled, preheat your oven to 400 degrees F (190 degrees C) and place rack in center of the oven. Don’t bother with greasing or lining your baking sheets, even rolled in cinnamon and sugar, these cookies don’t stick.
5. Make your coating in a shallow bowl that has room to move by mixing together the sugar and cinnamon.
6. Next up, shape the dough into 1 inch round balls (you can go way bigger, and I have, for larger cookies, but adjust the baking time).
7. Roll the balls of dough in the cinnamon sugar and place on your baking/cookie sheet giving them space to spread. But before popping these suckers in the oven, use the bottom of a glass to flatten each cookie just a wee bit.
8. Slide your sheets into the oven and bake for about 8-10 minutes (this will be shorter if you have a fan-assisted oven so keep an eye on them) or until they are light golden brown and firm around the edges. Don’t bake too long, you want the middle of the cookies to be soft. Slide the sheets out of the oven, give them a second to chill out, then scoop them off and put them on a wire rack to cool.

The post Snickerdoodles appeared first on Kristen Ashley.

Or, the best of the lot, you can bake it into peanut butter cookies (which, by the by, are not healthy).

Now every American knows about these cookies. They may not like them but I’m pretty certain it is a requirement of being American to know about these cookies. It might be on the citizen test but I’m not certain about that. If it isn’t, it should be.

These cookies are quintessentially American. Peanut butter. Cookie form. Hershey’s Kiss pressed into the middle.

With all that said about America, this may be blasphemy, but these cookies do not reach their zenith of deliciousness unless you press a very English square of Cadbury Dairy Milk into them after they’ve baked.

Let me digress. English chocolate is great. It doesn’t matter what kind you get, you will not be disappointed. I don’t want to be stoned by my American brethren, but the cheapest, most common English chocolate is better than most widely-available varieties of American chocolate. This is true also for ice cream. English ice cream is freaking great. Even the least expensive ice cream will curl your toes with delight the instant it touches your taste buds. But treat yourself to clotted cream ice cream and you’ll think you died and went to ice cream heaven.

So, getting back to the point, these quintessentially American cookies, when fused with English chocolate, are, quite simply, the bomb.

Rock Chick Cookies

• Prep Time

  20

• Cook Time

  8-10

Ingredients

• 1 Big Bar Cadbury Dairy Milk, or a bag of Hershey’s kisses if you're in the US
• ½ cup Crisco/Trex/Crisp and Dry
• ¾ cup Creamy (smooth) Peanut Butter
• 1/3 cup (packed) Light Brown Sugar
• 1/3 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 Egg
• 2 tablespoons Milk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 ½ cup Flour (Plain in the UK, All-Purpose in the US)
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda (Bicarb in the UK)
• ½ teaspoon Salt
• Extra Granulated Sugar, if you can, use colored sugar

How to do it…

1. Preheat oven to 190C or 375F.
2. Open your bar of Dairy Milk, separate the squares and try not to eat any. It's good to have an extra bar of Dairy Milk just in case you need more squares. You won’t, of course, so then you’ll have the extra bar just to eat. If you're using Hershey’s Kisses then take off the wrappers.
3. Beat the Trex/Crisco (shortening) and peanut butter in a large bowl until well blended. I do this in my KitchenAid standing mixer because, well, I’m lucky enough to have a KitchenAid standing mixer.
4. Now, add both sugars and beat again for a good long while, until fluffy. Add the egg, milk and vanilla and beat again. Whisk together the flour, soda (bicarb) and salt and dump this into the peanut butter mixture. You could take your time doing this and probably should if you are beating by hand, adding it bit by bit. If you have a mixer, that will do all your work for you so you don’t have to mess about with gradually beating it all in.
5. Next up, shape the dough into 1 inch balls and roll in granulated sugar. This is where I get creative and use colored sugar. Red and green for Christmas. Rock Chick pink, green or purple because I’m a Rock Chick. Whatever. Tinted sugar doesn’t make these taste better but they look awesome. By the by, back in the day, I bought my tinted sugar from Williams Sonoma. I looked it up and it isn't as easy to find as it once was, but Walmart has a great selection of colors online...and you can also DIY your own colors (Google it!).
6. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake eight to ten minutes (seven, if you have a fan-assisted oven) until lightly browned. When you pull these puppies out, immediately press the chocolate squares or kisses in the middle. Don’t fret when the cookies crack a bit around the chocolate, they’re supposed to do that.
7. Give them a minute or so on the tray, then slide those babies onto a wire rack and let them cool. This is going to take a while because you can’t really move or stack them until the cookie and the chocolate (which will melt into the cookie) hardens. Or, at this point, you can carefully pop one into your mouth and enjoy.

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