Lavender Pepper Cookies

I was a bit skeptical about my ability to experience lavender as anything but a fragrance. I've been putting off using it for a while, but tonight was the night to give it a shot.

The lavender taste in these is strong enough to stand out, but not so much so that it was offensive. The pepper leaves a lingering spice that is an interesting and new experience for me in a cookie. I probably wouldn't make these too often, but they'd be a nice change of pace from your average chocolate chip or peanut butter cookie.

To achieve the lavender taste, I made some lavender sugar. The smell was overwhelmingly perfumey to the point where I was more or less choking in a purple haze, minus the purple.

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Lavender Sugar

3/4 c sugar
1 3/4 tbsp dried lavender
1/2 tsp ground pepper

Using food processor, grind up ingredients. I can't exactly tell you when it's done. I probably didn't do it for more than 30 total seconds on pulse.

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The actual cookie recipe Fannie Farmer's Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie recipe.  I've used it in a variety of ways in the past because it's a pretty good base cookie to toy with.

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Lavender Pepper Cookies

1/2 c butter
lavender sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp milk
1 1/4 c flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp ground pepper

Cream butter until light and fluffy. Beat in lavender sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat thoroughly. Add milk. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt and mix into butter mixture. In small bowl, mix together sugar and pepper. Spoon batter onto buttered cookie sheet about 1 inch apart. Sprinkle with sugar/pepper mixture and flatten slightly with fingers.  Bake at 375 degrees for about 9 minutes. Makes 22 2.5 inch cookies.

A note: These cookies flatten right out, so make sure you don't place them too close together. Also, they don't necessarily come out perfectly round.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies with Orange Decorator's Frosting

These are the teeniest tiniest little cookies. I don't know why I made them so small, but they are the perfect, pop-in-your-mouth size.

As you can see, these are about half frosting. I think it gives a much needed moisture to these otherwise dry cookies.What I discovered in making these is that I'm really not a fan of cocoa powder. It just doesn't taste right when I'm looking for a chocolaty treat. I do, however, still enjoy citrus sweets in just about every way.

The recipe for these cookies comes straight from Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook. The only difference is, I apparently made them bigger than she wanted because I ended up with about 20 less cookies that the recipe said I'd get. These are meant to be super small.

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Old Fashioned Chocolate Sugar Cookies

1/2 c butter
3/4 c sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp milk
1 1/4 c flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 c cocoa powder

Cream butter until soft and fluffy. Beat in sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat thoroughly. Add milk. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa powder in separate bowl and stir into butter mixture. Mix well and arrange by teaspoon on buttered cookie sheet about one inch apart. Bake at 325 degrees for 8-11 minutes. Makes 50-60 (I got 32)

Note: These don't flatten out very much while baking, so if you're looking for a thinner cookie, flatten slightly with your fingers or a fork before putting in the oven.

Second note: This mixture is a little bit too think to spoon on, so I found it easier (though messier) to just roll them into balls my hand.

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The frosting on these is an altered version of my Christmas cookie frosting. I wanted orange frosting. This was, indeed, that, but it could be much better. I'll work on that another time.

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Orange Decorator's Frosting

2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 c sugar
1 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp orange zest

Cream butter and vanilla until soft. Blend in sugar, juice and zest.

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So school is starting up in less than a week and I'm not sure what that's going to leave me with for baking time. If I had to guess, I'd say little to none. But! I'm not too worried about it. I'll do what I can to keep this going without massive gaps between updates.

(My birthday is next week, too. Happy birthday me.)

Maple 2: Electric Boogaloo

So I may have been finished up with ginger, but I wasn't quite done with this maple thing. When it came down to it, I realized I hadn't really had maple anything outside of the wide world of pancakes and waffles. I did a little perusing and found a maple cake recipe I wanted to try, tweaked it, and here I am.

Yes, the frosting is still marshmallow.  What can I say, I really enjoy that creamy, fluffy, smoothness. You'll notice, though, that I swapped the sprinkles out for the chopped pecans. I think the difference is...what makes it.

But in all seriousness, these look exactly like the last cupcakes I posted, so I had to do something to distinguish them.

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Maple Spice Cupcakes

2 1/2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c butter
1 c pure maple syrup
1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c water
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.Beat butter and sugar on high until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating in between each. Add maple syrup and vanilla. Switch to low speed and add flour alternately with water, being sure to end with flour. Fill liners about 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes. Makes 22.

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These aren't maple-y in the sense I was expecting, but they are good nonetheless. The nutmeg comes through a little heavy, but not in a bad way. The cinnamon doesn't come through very well, but might be accentuating the nutmeg. These would get a 3.6 out of 4 if I actually rated cupcakes.

Maple Ginger Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting

First and foremost, I didn't like these one bit. It may well have been the worst cupcake I've ever had. That being said, someone else said that they weren't that bad. Not good, mind you, but not *that* bad. Who might enjoy these? People who like the taste of ginger without the spice, marshmallow fluff without the taste, or the smell of maple syrup without any other trace of maple syrup.

They look pretty though, don't they? Note that I didn't want to put sprinkles on because these wouldn't have been a sprinkle cupcake even if they DID come out delicious, but I was basically forced to do it. So there's that.

I knew I was going to be using up the rest of my candied ginger. That was all I knew when I started this. From there I decided, "Well maple syrup doesn't sound like it would do too bad with ginger." And then, "Marshmallow and maple syrup sounds pretty good!" which is how I ended up here. I stand by my reasoning that these things could very well taste good together if done properly.

Another thing: the structural integrity of the cupcake is a bit shaky. You can get an idea from the picture. Having put too much candied ginger in a fairly watery batter, it all sank to the bottom and detached while baking. So yeah. There's that too.

Here's the recipe anyway:

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Maple Ginger Cupcakes

2 eggs
1 tbsp maple extract
1 c sugar
1 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 c milk
1 tbsp butter
1 1/4 c chopped candied ginger
1 tsp ground ginger

Beat eggs and maple together until blended. Beat in sugar. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and ground ginger together in separate bowl. Add to egg and sugar mixture. Heat butter and milk together until butter melts. Add to mixture and beat until smooth. Stir in candied ginger. Bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. Makes 12.

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The marshmallow frosting came from here and is the only thing I liked about this cupcake. Or rather, would have if I could taste it.