Daniel's Carrot Cake Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

When you're selected as my "baking target" the first thing I do is ask you what you like and what you don't like. What usually follows is a meandering trail of back and forth questions and answers until I feel satisfied that I know your palette well enough to make you something you'll like. Once I have my completed dossier, I get to work sifting through my endless supply of "gotta-make" recipes, which is my favorite part. This part of the process can some times take longer to complete than actually making the treat!

When I asked Daniel what he wanted for his birthday he was very succinct about his baked-good preferences. He specifically mentioned carrot cake which immediately made me think of this recipe. Happy Birthday Daniel! I hope you had a great birthday!

Carrot Cake Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from one found on Epicurious

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon good quality cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup fresh, coarsely grated carrots (2 medium)
1 scant cup pecans (3 oz), chopped (optional but note that if you omit them, you will end up with slightly less yield. The nuts really bulk up the batter.)
1/2 cup raisins (2 1/2 oz)

8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 375°F. Butter 2 baking sheets or use a Silpat mat.

Whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

Beat together butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in carrots, nuts, and raisins at low speed, then add flour mixture and beat until just combined.

Drop 1 tablespoons batter per cookie 2 inches apart on baking sheets and bake, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are lightly browned and springy to the touch, 10 to 12 minutes total. Cool cookies on sheets on racks 1 minute, then transfer cookies to racks to cool completely.

While cookies are baking, whip cream cheese and vanilla together until well combined. Add sugar and continue mixing until smooth.

Sandwich flat sides of cookies together with a generous tablespoon of cream cheese filling in between or just serve as singles. Garnish with a small fragment of nut on top.

A few tips when making these cookies:

1. Don't try to save time by buying baby pre-peeled carrots. Although they will save you some time, they will cost you in flavor.

2. Let them cool completely before enjoying. The flavor takes some time to develop and actually tastes a little bland when they are fresh from the oven. It's a bit strange, but the longer they sit the better they taste. If you need them for an event, I'd make them at least a day in advance.

3. Use a good quality, recently purchased cinnamon. My favorite is Vietnamese. It has a bold, yet sweet flavor that won't overwhelm. If your cinnamon has been in your cupboard for a few years, toss it or you'll be missing out.

4. Be sure to be generous with the frosting. Although the cookies aren't dry, they aren't super moist either so there needs to be an adequate cookie-to-frosting ratio. Pour it on a bit thick.

5. I have an old fashioned nut-mill (not sure if that's what you call it) that I used to cut the pecans I used. The nuts were cut rather small and I found that this really changed the texture of the cookie. I would recommend cutting the nuts up into larger chunks and maybe even toasting them before hand to get more nut flavor.

Yield: I made two batches and ended up with about 60 cookies. I "sandwiched" 20 of them together and decided to switch to singletons because I wanted the recipe to feed more people. I preferred the singleton because it had more frosting. Yum!
Would I Make This Again? If I would have written this blog post right after baking these, my rating would have been really low (see tip number 2, above) but the next morning when I tried one they were so much better! They just get better with age. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Mandy's Candies

Mandy has given more thought to her birthday treat than anyone else I know. She's considered a lot of options over several months. Some of possible selections were Baklava, Lemon-Coconut Macaroons, and a Lemon-Coconut Tart. But then the topic of graham crackers came up and how much she loves coconut and then hazelnuts and I got inspired by this recipe I found on Epicurious. She took one look at it and gave me the green light to make it.

I adapted it (as usual) as I found it to be extremely versatile. Here's how I made them:

24 plain graham crackers (or any kind of non-savory flavored cracker. Saltines are wonderful)
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
11.5 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghirardelli)
12 oz of semi-sweet chocolate (I used Guittard)
1 cup hazelnuts, chopped
3/4 cup of unsweetened coconut

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 25 x 17 x full sheet pan pan with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang at each end. (Note: the recipe on Epicurious said to use foil and I ended up peeling tiny pieces from the bottom of the candy. Baaad idea.)

In a separate, smaller pan (a brownie pan works great), spread the coconut out in an even, single layer. Bake, stirring after 5 minutes or so, until the coconut becomes an even golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside. Increase the oven's temperature to 375F.

Line bottom of pan with graham crackers (it will be a tight fit and you'll need to break a few in half. Set aside.

Melt butter in a 3-4 quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, then add brown sugar and salt and cook, whisking, until mixture is smooth and combined well, about 2minutes. Pour over crackers, spreading evenly, and bake in middle of oven until golden brown and bubbling, about 10 minutes.

Scatter chocolate chips evenly over crackers and bake in oven until chocolate is soft, about 1 minute. Remove pan from oven and gently spread chocolate evenly over crackers with offset spatula. Sprinkle nuts evenly over chocolate and cool crackers in pan on a rack 30 minutes.

Refrigerate overnight or freeze for 15 minutes.

Carefully lift crackers from pan by grasping both parchment paper, then peel it from the. Break crackers into serving pieces.

Note: Crackers keep, chilled and layered between sheets of wax paper in an airtight container, 2 weeks...but they'll never actually last that long. One whiff of these babies and they disappear!


The smell of this sweet concoction alone makes it worth making. It seems so incredibly good!

Happy Half Birthday Eve Mandy! I hope this was everything you had hoped it would be

Yield: This will serve several. Depending on how you break up the candy, you could potentially get 50 servings out of it.
Would I Make This Again? Yes! This dessert, in my humble opinion is an All-Star! 5 out of 5 stars.

Orlo's Power Bars

For Olro's birthday he asked for either chocolate chip cookies or for something called a Biff Bar. Since I've made chocolate chip cookies a gazillion times, I decided I'd take a stab at the Biff Bar. I had no luck finding a Biff Bar recipe but I did find a recipe called Jo-Ann's Power Bars on Allrecipes.com . Orlo said looked good so I gave it a shot.

I tweaked the recipe a bit (as usual) but accident I left out the eggs which made the bars a bit more crumbly then I would have wanted. But the good news is that they are vegan friendly! Yey!

Orlo's Power Bars

2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups Nature's Path SmartBran
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2/3 cup applesauce
1/2 cup honey (for vegan bars use maple syrup or agave nectar)
6 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup unsalted sunflower seeds
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup of chopped pecans
1 (7 ounce) bag chopped dried mixed fruit

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 9x13 pan with Pam. Set aside.

In a large bowl, stir together the oats, flour, cereal, and cinnamon. Add the applesauce, honey, brown sugar, and oil. Mix well. Stir in the sunflower seeds, walnuts, and dried fruit. Spread mixture evenly in the prepared pan.

Bake 30 minutes, or until firm and lightly browned around the edges. Let cool completely then cut into bars or squares, and store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator. Note: The flavor of the bars improves over time. I found that the flavor was much better the next day.

The best part about this recipe is that you can really add anything you'd like. My only regret would have been to use more fruit and to not use one that has any "essence" added. I think the dried fruit I used had a slight orange essence added to it.

Yield: 15-20 servings. It really depends on how you cut the bars.
Would I Make This Again? Yes. I want to try it with different fruit, more fruit, and raisins. I'd also like to try it with 2 egg whites too. 3.5 stars out of 5

Traci's Almond-Chococonut Bars

Traci's birthday falls on a Friday the 13th this year, but the only thing scary about it is the amount of calories I managed to fit into her dessert! She said she would like something that resembled an Almond Joy candy bar and it didn't matter what it was. She just wanted it to have coconut, chocolate, and almonds as part of it's ingredients.

I checked around the web and a few cookbooks and eventually settled on a recipe in the Cake Doctor's Chocolate Lovers cookbook called, "Joy of Almonds" Bars. Unfortunately I made a tiny error when I was at the grocery store and ended up buying condensed milk instead of evaporated! So I had to scramble and get creative. I ended up tweaking the dessert and I think it came out pretty good. It's definitely Almond-Joy-ee!

Happy Birthday Traci - I hope you enjoy your dessert!

Almond Chococonut Bars

• 1 box of Devil's food cake cake mix
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

Prepare as indicated on the box but add the almond extract at the same time you add the eggs. Pour into prepared jelly-roll pan. Bake at 350F for about 12 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the cake clean. Cool. Keep the oven on.

• bag of sweetened shredded coconut
• 1/2 can of condensed milk
• 20 big marshmallows

Put the condensed milk into a small medium sized saucepan and bring to a low boil over medium heat. Stir often so that the bottom of the pan doesn't burn and turn the milk into caramel. Add the marshmallows and continue mixing until the marshmallows are completely melted. Add the coconut and mix well. Spoon the coconut mixture over the cooked the cake and put it back in the oven for 8 minutes. Cool. (Turn off oven) .

• 1/2 cup of milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup of chopped almonds

In small bowl, melt chocolate chips in the microwave for a minute at a time and mix well. Continue until completely melted. Drizzle over bars. Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Tracy's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cloud Pie

Tracy's been my neighbor for over four year now and she's someone I've liked from the moment I met her. She's always smiling and just a ray of sunshine around our neighborhood. Recently she hosted a very large neighborhood swap meet. Not only did she help me rid my house of a ton of stuff I didn't want, I was able to pick up a bunch of stuff I could use, including my new favorite book, Food Lovers Companion. So, to show my gratitude I offered to make her something sweet. She said she loved anything with chocolate and peanut butter. I knew just the thing! I had something similar a few years ago that a friend made for me so I tweaked the recipe and this is what I came up with. I hope you had a great birthday Tracy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cloud Pie

Crust:

• 1 package (2 to 2 1/2 cups) of Oreo cookies, separated with sweet filling removed, crushed (run them through the food processor)
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
  

Filling:

• 2 8 oz blocks of cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 pint whipping cream
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 F

2.Mix cookie crumbs, sugar, and butter together into a spring form pan (9 1/2 or 10 1/2 in both work) and press down into place. Bake for 8 minutes - DO NOT OVER BAKE! . Remove from oven and cool.

3. Beat whipped cream just until stiff peaks are formed. Add vanilla and continue mixing until stiff. Set aside.

4. Beat together cream cheese, peanut butter and sugar until fluffy. Add whipped cream mixture and fold until well combined. Pour into cooled pie crust.

5. Melt chocolate chips in microwave. Stir occasionally until chocolate is smooth. Put a few tablespoons of the melted chocolate into a heavy duty zip lock bag. Snip the very end of the bag. Slowly pipe out a design on the top of the pie. You can also use a squeeze bottle or pastry bag instead of a zip-lock bag if you have either handy. For an even prettier design, use 1/4 cup each of dark and milk chocolate and layer the two one on top of the other. In the pictures I've
submitted, I've used two kinds of chocolate and made 4 layers.

6. Chill for at least 4 hours or until set.

Shannon's Lady Baltimore Cake

If you've read the left hand column of my blog, you'd know that I credit the very existence of Dozen Flours to my friend Shannon (aka Shanno). She moved on to greener pastures many moons ago and I've really missed working with her. No matter how rotten a day Shannon was having, she was positive and smiling and just a joy to be around. And she would always give me the most sincere comments about my Birthday Fairy treats. I only had the good fortune to bake for her on her birthday once before she left. Several months ago at a friend's party, Shannon and I ran into each other again and that's when she suggested starting a blog so that she could at least see what she was missing out on.

Even though Shannon didn't work with me, I still fully intended to bake her something on birthday. A week or so before her birthday this year, our mutual friend, Erika had mentioned to me that Shannon had been eyeing something called a Lady Baltimore Cake. I'd never heard of such a thing! I was intrigued! So I did my usual Internet research and found several promising recipes (here's a bit of history about the cake). Unfortunately, when her birthday arrived my oven was on the fritz! Oh the humanity! I was so sad!

As luck would have it, our paths were to cross again over the weekend and my oven was in full working order. Although her birthday was a several months ago, I figured it was better late than never. A more appropriate cake could not have been made for such a wonderful person. Thanks Shannon for being such a great friend!

I followed the recipe that I found on Epicurious but I did alter it a bit -- here's my version of the recipe:

For the cake layers

• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (clear keeps the cake very white)
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (clear keeps the cake very white)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup full-fat milk
• 7 large egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Filling and Frosting

• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup water
• 8 large egg whites
• 2 teaspoons clear vanilla
• 1/2 cup finely chopped dried figs (plus 3 whole dried figs for garnish)
• 1 cup pecans, toasted lightly and chopped fine
• 1/2 cup raisins, chopped
• 1/2 cup dried or candied cherries

Cake

1. Grease and flour 3 or 4 9-inch round cake pans.

2. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the butter with the sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and the almond extract.

3. In a different bowl, stir together the flour, the baking powder, and the salt. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in batches alternately with the milk, until well combined.

4. In another large bowl beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar and a pinch of salt until they just hold stiff peaks, stir one third of them into the batter, and fold in the remaining whites gently but thoroughly.

5. Divide the batter among the prepared pans, smoothing the tops, and bake the cake layers, in batches if necessary, in the middle of a preheated 325°F. oven for 25 to 35 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Let the cake layers cool in the pans on racks for 5 minutes, turn them out onto the racks, and let them cool completely. The cake layers may be made 1 week in advance and kept wrapped well in plastic wrap and frozen. Let the layers thaw before proceeding with the recipe.

Frosting:
1. In a small saucepan combine the sugar and the water, bring the mixture to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved, and boil the syrup until it registers 248°F. on a candy thermometer. Pour sugar mixture into a tempered glass measuring cup. (I suggest this because the pot is very, very hot and heavy!. Transfering the sugar to a glass mesauring cups is lighter, cooler, and easier to pour from.)

2. While the syrup is boiling, in a large bowl with an electric mixer beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they hold soft peaks and with the mixer running add the hot syrup in a stream. (DO NOT DUMP THE HOT SUGAR MIXURE DIRECTLY INTO YOUR EGG WHITES! This will cause your egg whites to deflate. However, if this happens all is not lost! Keep mixing the egg whites and they will come back eventually.

3. Beat in the vanilla and beat the icing until it is cool - about 10-15 minutes. Transfer 2-3 cups of the icing to a bowl, reserving the remaining icing, and fold in the figs, pecans, cherries, and raisins.

4. Arrange 1 of the cake layers, flat side up, on a serving plate, spread it with half the dried-fruit icing, and top the filling with another cake layer, flat side down. Spread the top layer with the remaining dried-fruit icing and top the filling with the remaining cake layer. Spread the top and side of the cake with the reserved plain icing .To garnish, either leave the top of the cake plain, sprinkle with pecans, or to do what I did, take a dried fig and flatten it. Using a very sharp paring knife, cut a "W" out of the top. This will become your tulip! Use log pieces of pecans for the stems. For the ribbon I used big dried cherries that I cut into a strip, and two that I flattened and cut a "V" out of.

5. Refrigerate the cake until you're ready to eat it. The frosting is very light and sticky at room temperature. When it's refrigerated it gets firm and sets a bit better and makes it much easier to transport.

Noella Got Married! Venetian & Italian Wedding Cookies

Last week, my dear friend Noella and her long time boyfriend, John went to Hawaii for vacation. Shortly after they arrived in Maui, John proposed, and forty-eight hours later at a courthouse in Kaua'i, they were pronounced husband and wife! I think it's the most romantic way to get married. She told me today, "I waited so long for him to propose I just couldn't wait to be married to him!" (Aww!)

In honor of their nuptials, her desk was decorated all "wedding-y" and it looked great! We didn't stop there! Of course I had to make her something super special. Since Noella is Italian, I knew she'd love either Venetian Cookies or Italian Wedding Cookies but I couldn't decide between the two. So I ended up making them both!

Congratulations Noella and John!

Chris's Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

One of my mom's favorite desserts when I was growing up was cheesecake, and time after time she would attempt to make one and well, let's just say she was really good at adding a distinctive carbon flavor to them. When Chris told me he wanted cheesecake, I immediately thought of my mom and panicked.

I was so nervous while making this cake! I measured everything I needed ahead of time and placed it into little bowls, Martha Stewart style. Luckily the cake was a success. So Mom, this one was for you!

Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

• 1/2 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 cups vanilla wafer, pulverized in a food processor
• 1 cup hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
• 3 T sugar
• 4 T melted, unsalted butter (not margarine)
• 3 blocks full-fat room temperature cream cheese
• 1 cup sugar 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 4 T hazelnut liqueur (I use Frangelico)
• 1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (mini chips or regular size)
• 4 T full-fat sour cream
• 1 T hazelnut liqueur
• 1 square white chocolate

Crust: Preheat oven to 300F. Toast the hazelnuts in a warm, dry frying pan for about 7 minutes. Transfer nuts to a food processor and pulverize. Add sugar and pulse a few times. Pour into a bowl and add vanilla wafer crumbs, chocolate chips, and butter. Mix together thoroughly. Press evenly onto the bottom of a 9 or 9 1/2 inch spring-form pan. Bake for 15 minutes and then cool. Increase the oven temperature to 350F.

Filling: While the crust is cooling, in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until soft and fluffy, stopping from time to time to scrape down the sides of the bowl and mixers. Keep the mixer running and add the sugar until well combined. Add the eggs and liqueur, stopping every now and then to scrape down the sides. Mix until well blended. Fold the mini chocolate chips into the batter. Pour batter into the cooled crust. Gently drop the cheesecake on the counter 3-6 times to release trapped air-bubbles. Bake in the center of 350F oven for 1 hour, slowly turning it one-quarter turn every 15 minutes.

After an hour, remove it from the oven and set it on the counter to cool. Run a knife around the pan's edge. Slowly remove the outer ring and let cool completely. Note: The cake will fall while it is cooling!

Meanwhile, melt 1/2 cup chocolate chips in a double boiler. Once the chocolate is completely melted, add sour cream and mix well. Then add liqueur. Spread glaze on the top and sides top of the cooled cheesecake. In a small bowl, microwave the white chocolate for one minute on high heat, stir, then microwave again for 30 seconds. Transfer white chocolate to a zip lock bag and push contents to the corner. Snip a the corner of the bag with scissors. Slowly pipe 7-8 concentric circles until you reach the center of the cake. Using a toothpick and medium pressure, starting from the center of the cake, slowly drag the toothpick through the lines of the circles, dragging the chocolate along the way. Store in the refrigerator until ready to eat.