Browsing the archives for the snickerdoodles tag.

Miss America 2011

Domestic, Kids, Pretty

I adore pageants, their extreme cheesy factor doesn’t bother me at all. The bigger the hair and the more glitter on the evening gowns, the better! I eat it right up. So, naturally, I love, love, love the mother of all pageants, Miss America. For the last few years, I’ve gathered my girlfriends to wear plastic crowns and cute dresses and drink champagne and watch the show. This is my first year in the woods – and just my wonderful luck – its also the first year Wee One #2 is interested and oh boy is she interested.

The celebrations around here started early. I was wearing my rhinestone tiara and my biggest Urban Decay lashes at breakfast (just for the record, these are my dailies). Here is Wee One #2 all set for the show about an hour before it started, the one of me was taken in the morning and then I shoveled and cleaned like this. I adore these lashes, they’re so fun.

 

We baked up some girlie treats last night and watched Miss America together. She was rooting for Miss Oklahoma (she was the 4th runner up), and I was rooting for Miss Nevada, who unfortunately didn’t even make the semi-finals. Our second choices were Miss Hawaii (my choice, she got 3rd runner up), and Wee One #2’s second choice, Miss Nebraska WON! She’s just 17 and carried herself really well through the whole competition.

I have baked all of these creations before, I just decorated them differently for our girlie evening.

These cookies are Martha’s Snickerdoodles (posted about here), minus the cinnamon and sandwiched with leftover ganache from a treat I made for my amazing husband that I’ll post about tomorrow in Marriage Monday. The ganache is the typical combo of 12 oz of good chocolate pieces, 3/4 cup heavy cream and 6 tablespoons butter (heat the cream and the butter until it’s almost boiling, then pour it over the chocolate and mix).

 

These little babies, of course are just mini chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting and multicoloured coarse sugar. I used the Stir and Bake Chocolate Cake recipe I posted about here.

 

 

More chocolate cupcakes, more buttercream frosting. Here I tinted half pink and half purple. I filled the pastry bag half and half so when I piped it, the colours would swirl together. Cute!!

So she now wants to be a beauty queen. So adorable it almost hurts. Here’s some So Very Domestic trivia for you. I was in a beauty pageant when I was 8. I won Miss Sunburst and Miss Photogenic. True story – I still have the trophies to prove it! 😉

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Snickerdoodle Cookies and Cupcakes

Domestic, Kids

I’m backtracking a little here, because while I do have a stash of mini snickerdoodle cupcakes in the freezer for Christmas, I made this for my sister’s birthday party two weeks ago.

I first read about snickerdoodle cookies in Great Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets in 2003 when I picked up the book (amazing book, by the way – full of fun cookies) and I knew I had to try them based on the name! They’re essentially a cinnamon sugar cookie, then rolled in cinnamon and sugar before they’re baked. We all liked them and made themfrom time time to time. Then in 2008, one of my kids discovered A Barbie Christmas Carol, and the main Barbie’s favorite cookies are snickerdoodles! Since then, it’s become a household staple and Martha’s snickerdoodles, are hands down the best.

Martha Stewart’s Snickerdoodles – from Martha Stewart Holiday Magazine 2005, Cookies Special Issue

2 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
8 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup shortening (I used more butter)
1 3/4 cups sugar + more
2 tbsp cinnamon + more
2 large eggs

 

Sift your flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl with your mixer, cream together the butter, shortening and 1 1/2 cups of the sugar. Beat for about 2 minutes, until fluffy. Scrap down the sides of the bowl and mix in your eggs, one at a time. Then slowly add your flour mixture and beat until it’s totally mixed in. I also add about 1 tsp of cinnamon to my dough.

 

Mix the leftover 1/4 cup of sugar and the 2 tbsp of cinnamon in a small bowl. Use a tablespoon to scoop out regular sized cookies or a teaspoon for mini cookies. Shape them into little balls with (slightly) wet hands and then drop them in the cinnamon sugar. Roll them around so they’re covered and then put them on your parchment paper lined cookie sheet and flatten them with a glass. It helps a little of the glass is dipped in the cinnamon sugar as well.

 

Bake for 10 minutes at 400. Martha recommends rotating your baking sheets after 10 minutes, but I have found that it really doesn’t change anything. These cookies crack on top, but they do not brown – so don’t wait for them to or they’ll burn.

These cookies are alarmingly good for dunking in either coffee, milk, soy milk or, my biggest weakness, vanilla chai smoothies.

I’ve been trying to keep my posts down to just one recipe at a time to make things easier to find later, but this second recipe really goes with the first! I first saw on Bakerella the teaming of snickerdoodle cookies with snickerdoodle cupcakes. For Valentine’s Day 2009, I made heart shaped cocoa brownies and stacked them on top of chocolate cupcakes with a layer of buttercream, which decedent as it is made perfect sense to me. So the idea of stacking cookies on cupcakes with layers of buttercream is totally logical.

For consistency’s sake, I used Martha Stewart’s snickerdoodle cupcakes.

Martha Stewart’s Snickerdoodle Cupcakes – from Martha Stewart Online

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp cinnamon + 1/2 tsp for dusting
1 cup butter, room temp
1 3/4 cups sugar + 2 tbsp for dusting
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups milk

 

First, sift together both flours, baking powder, salt and 1 tbsp cinnamon. In another bowl, with your mixer, cream butter and sugar until they’re ‘pale and fluffy’. Then add the eggs one at a time, and beat in the vanilla. Don’t forget to scrape down the sides of your bowl.

 

Alternate between adding the milk and the flour mixture until it’s all combined. Now pour the batter into lined muffin cups, about 3/4 full. Bake for about 15-20 minutes at 350.

Now, if you need to (I needed to and then we ate them all), whip up a batch of buttercream, pipe a bit on your cupcake, top with a cookie and then top that with another bit of buttercream.

Divine. Snap photos while you can – this pile of treats wont last long!!

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