Mini Chocolate Whoopie Pies adapted from King Arthur Flour recipe

CAKES

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 teaspoon espresso powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa

2-1/3 cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 cup milk

FILLING

½ cup powdered sugar

1 7-oz container Solo Toasted Marshmallow Creme

Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Lightly grease (or line with parchment or Silpats) two baking sheets.

To make the cakes: In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, espresso powder,

baking powder, baking soda, salt, and vanilla till smooth.

Add the egg, again beating till smooth.

Add the cocoa, stirring to combine.

Add the flour to the batter alternately with the milk, beating till smooth.

Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, and beat again briefly

to soften and combine any chunky scrapings.

Drop the dough by heaping tablespoonful onto the prepared baking sheets,

leaving plenty of room between the cakes;

they’ll spread. A tiny scoop works well here.

Bake the cakes for 8 to 10 minutes, till they’re set and firm to the touch.

Remove them from the oven, and let cool a few minutes on the pans

then allow to cool completely on wire racks.

To make the filling: Beat together marshmallow and powdered sugar.

(this is messy and it doesn’t mix in completely)

Spread the flat side of half the cakes with the filling.

Top with the remaining cakes, flat side towards the filling.

Wrap individually, in waxed paper and store in airtight container.

The filling will dissolve within a few days so these do not keep long,

but no matter – they don’t last long either!

Oh you know my co-workers need a treat this week before Valentine’s Day

. . . so I got busy with some very fun cookies -

It was all in the decorating and everyone had a great laugh.

You would not believe how long it took each person to pick out a cookie to eat!

Hello, they all TASTE the same!

LEMON SUGAR COOKIES

(adapted from a Good Housekeeping recipe)

1 lemon

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-1/4 cup(s) sugar

1 cup unsalted room temperature butter

1 large egg

1 teaspoon each of lemon and vanilla extracts

Grate 1 to 2 tablespoons lemon peel and squeeze 1 tablespoon juice. Set peel and juice aside.

On waxed paper, combine flour, baking powder, and salt with a whisk. In a large bowl, with mixer on low speed, beat sugar and butter until blended. Increase speed to medium-high and beat for approx. 3 minutes or until light and creamy – frequently scraping the bowl. Reduce speed to low; beat in egg, lemon & vanilla extracts and lemon peel and juice until combined. Beat in flour mixture, just until mixed, occasionally scraping bowl. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces; flatten each into disk. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour or overnight, until firm enough to roll.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. On lightly floured surface, with floured rolling pin,

roll 1 disk of dough to 1/4-inch thickness. With floured heart shaped cookie cutters,

cut dough into as many cookies as possible –

cut off the pointy end of each heart shape; wrap and refrigerate trimmings to re-roll later.

Place cookies, about 1 inch apart, on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned.

Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool, about 10 minutes.

Repeat with remaining dough and trimmings.

Decorate with Royal Icing (see recipe below) made with lemon juice.

Allow frosting to dry completely before adding a second color, about 1 hour.

Store in tightly sealed container (with waxed paper between layers)

at room temperature up to 2 weeks or in freezer up to 3 months.

ROYAL ICING

(adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe)

Makes 2-1/3 cups

1 box confectioners’ sugar (1 pound)

5 tablespoons meringue (egg white) powder, or 2 large egg whites

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine sugar and meringue powder. Mixing on low speed, add a scant 1/2 cup lemon juice. For a thinner consistency, usually used for flooding, add more water. A thicker consistency is generally used for outlining and adding details. Mix until icing holds a ribbon-like trail on the surface of the mixture for 5 seconds when you raise the paddle.

Now you won’t find these cookies for sale at any WKF location, not even on our amazing web site – but we do have some wonderful chocolate covered strawberries to send with your roses this year -

decorated with dark, milk and white chocolate and packaged with red confetti and a white doily in a corsage box – made to order by our friends at the Blue Owl in Kimswick, MO – you’re gonna love them!  Available on our web site or in our stores – BY THE WAY we’ve got better prices on cash n carry roses than you’ll find at your local grocer – and our roses are FLORIST quality – we may arrange for strawberries on Valentine’s day – but we’re not stocking milk and eggs!

I’m a fan and subscriber to the King Arthur Flour newsletter -

every recipe I have ever tried has been wonderful.

Lately a ginger snap recipe came thru and since I had some around,

I finely diced some candied ginger and added it to the batter.

Then I poked a dark chocolate covered ginger candy into each one – voila, delish!

So, anyway,  here’s my take on their recipe

Gingersnaps – makes about sixty cookies

For the cookie dough

3/4 cup vegetable shortening*

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 large egg

1/3 cup molasses

2 1/3 cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 to 2 teaspoons ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

3/4 cup finely diced crystallized ginger

about 60 small pieces of dark chocolate covered candied ginger

For the coating

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Beat together the shortening, sugar, salt, and baking soda.

Beat in the egg, then the molasses.

Add the flour and spices, beating to make a smooth, fairly stiff dough.

Stir in the finely diced candied ginger

To make the coating, combine the sugar and cinnamon, and place in a shallow pan or dish.

Drop the dough in 1″ balls into the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Roll the balls in the sugar to coat, then transfer them to the prepared baking sheets,

leaving at least 1-1/2″ between them.

Poke a chocolate covered candy into each cookie.

Bake the cookies for 11 minutes, for cookies that are crisp around the edges, and “bendy” in the center.

Bake for 13 minutes, for cookies that are crisp/crunchy all the way through.

(I baked for 8 minutes then rotated the pan and baked for 7 more minutes.)

Remove the cookies from the oven, and cool right on the pan, or on a rack.

Cool completely, then store tightly wrapped, at room temperature.

I only baked 24 and rolled and stuffed the remaining batter and put the balls on waxed paper on a cookie sheet in the freezer and will bag them when they are hard.  I’ll have to get back to you on how the chocolate holds up!

Here is a photo of one of this summer’s moonflowers -(remember the seed pods in the basket above?  Nothing works better to pretty up a chain link fence! And the hummingbirds love the flowers.  But, then again, it was a lot of work today to cut those vines away.  I think I’ll plan on something else next year, maybe something I find in the spring at the Walter Knoll Florist garden center!

Got your holiday shopping started?  We’ve got our holiday features up!  Gifts from Walter Knoll are great for corporate gift giving! Check out our poinsettias – better than anything you’ll get at the big box hardware stores!  We also have any size gourmet gift basket you could want!

I’ve made these 4 or 5 times, finally “measured” and photographed them. 

The marshmallows in the batter melt into it to make a really chewy gooey brownie – the neighbors’ favorite!

S’more Brownies

1 18.4oz box Betty Crocker Original Supreme Premium Brownie Mix with Hershey’s Syrup in Pouch.

2 cups mini marshmallows (divided)

1 pkg of 9 graham crackers (divided)

For the brownie mix:

1 egg

¼ cup water

¼ cup oil

Preheat oven to 350F.  Line bottom and sides of an 8-1/2” x 11-1/2” (quarter size) sheet pan with parchment paper.  USE PARCHMENT or you’ll never get it out of the pan.

Break up about half the graham crackers into ½ or so size pieces into the bottom of the lined pan. 

Mix brownie mix per package instructions. 

Fold in 1 cup of mini marshmallows and spread mixture onto broken grahams in lined sheet pan. 

Break up the remaining crackers over the mixture and bake for 15 minutes. 

Remove from oven and sprinkle remaining 1 cup of mini marshmallows over mixture and put back in oven for 15 to 18 minutes.  Toothpick will come out with crumbs on it – find a spot with no marshmallows to test.

 

Allow to cool before slicing.  Use a knife dipped in hot water to cut into desired size portions.

Are you looking for a cute Halloween gift to send?  Check out our “Hey Jack” mug bouquet

Not exactly Jack Skellington, but just as cute, our Halloween pumpkin face mugs are just the seasonal gift with a bouquet of orange roses, statice, wax flowers, grevelia and purple ting ting.

Oh my neighbor kids and parents all have the swine flu, croup and/or ear infections! Poor mama! Yesterday while I baked off cookies for the holidays I thru together some chicken soup for them.

I gathered together celery, onions, carrots, garlic and ginger in the food processor and chopped it all pretty fine in case there is any throwing up going on!

Then I sauted the veggies until pretty soft add a couple cartons of chicken stock and a can of petite diced tomatoes a bit of salt & pepper and marjoram. Since I had ginger in there I also added a bit of soy sauce and Mirin.

I think little kids have got to have noodles in their soup so I broke up about a cup of hollow macaroni sticks into 1/2 to 1 inch pieces. I cooked the macaroni in a separate pot then added it to the soup. Took the whole pot over and plopped it on their stove. Feel better soon!

especially with Grammy’s Chocolate Waffies!
Makes about 60.

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
2-1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat Oven 350
Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, 2 cups sugar, and eggs on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add vanilla, and mix to combine. Gradually add dry ingredients, and combine with mixer on low speed. Form dough into tablespoon sized balls – inch and a half apart on silpats or parchment paper bake 8 minutes – turning at 4 minutes, just until shine just starts to go away – cool on sheet a few minutes before transferring to cooling racks –

I made my dough a week ahead and refrigerated it in a bowl with plastic wrap pressed to the dough and a lid on the bowl – worked great to let it sit on the counter to soften a bit while I prepared the veggies for the soup!

Speaking of cookies . . . I just love this Merry Memories arrangement we are featuring this year – the container could be a great cookie jar kinda gift container next year! So a great gift for that baker friend of yours!

Speaking of cookies . . . Our Italian Cookies offering from our baker friends on the hill are selling like hotcakes this year! We also have their pies! The Cherry Pie is as good as my own!

Man, it’s hard to do my usual bake-a-thon for the holidays now that I work in a Flower Shop.  Christmas is one of our big holidays and we’re all putting in a lot of hours in getting those flowers and centerpieces and gifts out for you. There’s lots of extra help though, and the busy busy busyness of it all is intoxicating.

I did over last weekend manage to make up a couple batches of cookie dough which I rolled into logs, wrapped in wax paper and stored in the fridge in paper towel cardboards (you save those, right?) so they stay in a log shape and don’t flatten on one side.

I have only packaged one gift of cookies for my friends Mary and Bill, but I’ll be taking lots of cookies to work on Sunday when everyone will be working. After all, what’s a Walter Knoll Floral Holiday without Di’s cookies and spicy cheese wafies?

I’m going to share this amazing chocolate cookie recipe with you, not sure where I picked it up, somewhere on the internet, but these are the best chocolate cookies you’ll ever eat!

Dark Dark Dark Dark Chocolate Cookies
Makes about 100.

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Dutch cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, 2 cups sugar, and eggs on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add vanilla, and mix to combine. Gradually add dry ingredients, and combine with mixer on low speed. Roll dough into 1 to 1-1/2 inch logs, wrap in waxed paper, stuff into a paper towel cardboard and chill until dough is firm, about 1 hour or as long as a week.
When ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with Silpat baking mats. Cut logs into quarter inch slices. Place on prepared baking sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart.

Bake until they just quit being shiny, about 8 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

My cool neighbor Joe tests all my cookies out and these dark dark dark chocolates got a big thumbs up out of him!

Got a friend who’s a choco-holic! This cake will send them over the edge!

The espresso powder adds a nice kick (if you know what I mean).

Cocoa Chiffon Cake

2/3 cup cocoa

1 tsp instant espresso powder (optional)

3/4 cup boiling water

7 eggs-separated

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1/4 cup sugar

1-1/2 cups un-sifted cake flour

1-1/2 cups sugar

1-1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Stir together cocoa and optional espresso and boiling water until smooth and set aside. Beat egg whites and cream of tarter until foamy, Gradually add 1/4 cup sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. In separate bowl combine flour, 1-1/2 cups sugar, baking soda and salt. Blend in oil, egg yolks, vanilla and reserved cocoa mixture until thoroughly blended. Gently fold in remaining egg whites. Pour batter into an un-greased 10-inch tube pan. Bake at 325 for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Invert until cool.

Place cake right side up on serving plate and spread with glaze while glaze is still warm.

Bittersweet Chocolate Glaze

4 oz best quality bittersweet chocolate

4 tbl unsalted butter

2 tbl corn syrup

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Melt chocolate with butter and whisk until smooth. Add corn syrup and vanilla and mix until smooth and shiny. Glaze cake with warm glaze, reheat if necessary to prolong fluidity.

If you like, you can double the glaze recipe and split the cake in 3 and add the chocolate glaze to the top of the bottom and middle layer and then glaze over the top after re-stacking.