Buttermilk Chocolate Cookies

It has been a very, very long time since my last post. Rather than discuss why I've been absent for so long, let's instead celebrate my first post of 2012. Yay!!!

Let's also celebrate these cookies:

Buttermilk Chocolate Cookies

  These buttermilk chocolate cookies were so easy to make, and super tasty. Melted butter, and my addition of brown sugar added chewiness to the texture of the cookie. If you don't have buttermilk, remember that you can make sour milk by replacing 1-2 tsp of milk with equal amount of vinegar/lemon juice.

Recipe (adapted from Baking Bites' version; my changes are in parentheses):
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup cocoa powder
 2 cups sugar (I did 1 cup white, 1 cup light brown sugar)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup buttermilk (I used sour milk)
2 cups chocolate chips (I did 1 cup bittersweet chips & 1 cup white chips)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.
Melt the butter in a small, microwave safe bowl.
In a large bowl, combine the melted butter (still warm) with cocoa powder and whisk until very smooth. Whisk in sugar, vanilla extract and buttermilk. Gradually stir in the flour mixture until no streaks of flour remain. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Drop dough in 1-inch balls into prepared baking sheet, leaving about two inches between cookies to allow for spread.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies are set around the edges.
Cool for 2-3 minutes on a baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack with a spatula to cool completely.
Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Valentine's Day

My favorite sugar cookie recipe

While in college, I worked a variety of jobs. Area manager at a theater, customer service rep for a call center, rental clerk for Hollywood video, prostitute...(Just kidding! I would never work for Hollywood video!) During my sophomore year, I worked as a hostess at a local Asian restaurant. It was crap job, but they were willing to let me work as much or as little as I wanted, because I spoke english.

I am Vietnamese, and they're all Chinese. So, the staff would often play practical jokes on me. When I first started working there, the waiter told me his name was "Da Ji," and that the sushi chef was "Mu Ji." It wasn't until weeks later that they finally admitted that I'd been calling them Rooster and Chicken. Hilarious. I loved working with them.

On slow days during the summer, we would take naps together at the sushi bar, or they would practice their english on me. Rooster would make me mixed cds with Michael Bolton and Kenny G songs. Chicken would make origami for me using bills from his tips jar. We all loved the movie Kung Fu Hustle. I would ask them about their lives in China or about their families, and they would pause and finally say that it was too difficult to talk about. They were amazing guys, and we kept in touch for almost two years, even after we all left the restaurant. I miss them a lot.

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies with Cream Cheese frosting

Three years ago, I stopped hearing from them. Their cell phone numbers stopped working. My phone hasn't changed, but I haven't heard from either of them. Rooster and Chicken were Chinese illegal immigrants who came to America to live better lives. I worry about them. I wonder if they were deported, or if they weren't able to pay off the debt they owed the smugglers who sneaked them into the country. I once asked Chicken about his journey to America. He would only shake his head, and say "No...bad. Bad."

It kills me that I don't have a phone number to reach them, or that I can't search Facebook to get back in touch with them. I know that their attachment to me was just as strong, that's why it's so frightening that they haven't called me in such a long time. I always think of Rooster and Chicken during a holiday, because that's when we would always make sure to get in touch...So each time a holiday rolls around, I hope that one of them will call.

Valentine's Day is a day about love, and we all have loved ones that we wish we were closer to, or people that we could love more. So, I guess this is my cheesy/depressing way to ask you to love each other. Do it more than you have in the past, and more often.  Everyone deserves friends like Rooster and Chicken.

I show love by baking for people. Notice the cookie that says "HATE."

Halloween 2010

So...I never posted about these cookies that I decorated for Halloween...My bad. I made eyeball cookies for a church gathering.


I didn't have time to make sugar cookies, so I bought some fake oreos (foreos?).

Then, I mixed up some cookie icing. I use this cookie icing from Allrecipes, but sub vanilla extract for almond.


I like for the icing to be a bit thick, because it's easier to spread around on a cookie that way. (I spread it on using a fork.) Decorating with sugar icing will take patience and practice, so bear with it if you're just starting!

After the cookies are iced with the white layer, let them dry.  I think these dried in 45 min or so.
Add some blue food coloring to some of the leftover white icing. Place in a piping bag with a tip, or just snip the corner of a bag and go at it.

I would recommend icing a few at a time, and then immediately adding a chocolate chip in the middle of the blue layer, so that it doesn't dry before you can add the "pupil."

Once these babies are dry, you can leave them as is, or for a creepier effect, use a toothpick and some red food coloring to add vein or pools of blood around the iris...


I hope you'll consider doing this for your next Halloween party!

Oatmeal peanut butter cookies

These are the best peanut butter cookies I've ever had.  What makes them even better is that they also contain oatmeal (my favorite kind of cookie), and are reduced fat (thank you, applesauce). They are: buttery, soft, chewy, and melt-in-your-mouth-y.


I made a  few changes to the recipe: add extra 1/2 c. of oats, reduce sugar levels to your preference (remember that the peanut butter also contains sugar!), don't use shortening (butter or margarine instead), and replace 1/3 of fat content with applesauce. With the changes, they were still really buttery, and moist. I cannot wait to try this recipe with added chocolate chips. It can only get more amazing. Edit: I also used crunchy pb,but I wonder how it would have turned out with reduced fat pb.

These were made for a bible study group, but I'm thinking that a few (lots) of these may be staying home...or in my belly.

Valentine's Day

I know. It's way past V-day. But I really wanted to post these pictures of these treats I made for some friends while I was in Virginia a few weeks ago.

Wonderful, wrapped deliciousness (that's what she said)

I find that most people I know either love or hate (maybe just pretend to hate) Valentine's Day. I used to be one of those people who hated it whether or not I was in a relationship when it rolled around. How do would you like to be told that you're loved and appreciated? With waxy chocolates from the pharmacy? Gross.

This is the way to do it:

Ok, so I couldn't fit "Christy" and "Jason" on that last batch of cookies. Lycheeyum had to eat quite a few with "Christ" or 'Jaso" written on them. Also, I think that they would have been prettier decorated with colored icing, but I didn't have any food coloring. There was plenty of red sugar sprinkles, however.