Cookies with Gertrude

As of late, I have discovered something dangerous. Gertrude can make cookies...... really, really, really good cookies.  The whole 50 degrees lower + parchment paper+ high rack words wonders. 

I needed to bake some cookies for various people for random favors, so I needed a crowd pleaser that I could make a lot of in a relatively short amount of time.  I also didn't really feel like going to the grocery, so I had to make do with what I had.  Since I have oatmeal religiously for breakfast every morning, I have a huge can of it that I would happily donate 1.5 cups towards cookies.  Also, white chocolate chips happened to be a irresistibly cheap at the store, so I happened to have some of those on hand too.  So it was settled: oatmeal white chocolate chip cookies. 

I used the following recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/white-chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookies/  with a few modifications.  I unfortunately did not have pecans (remember I'm on a budget), but I had the exciting addition of 1 tsp cinnamon.... definitely a nice touch.  Anyways, the recipe was pretty straight forward so I had no kitchen fails. However,  I did learn a valuable lesson that can be expanded to all other aspects of life: trust the process.  Even though the cookies only looked half-baked when it is time to take them out, I needed to trust that they would harden up only slightly to be literally the most chewy, delicious cookies ever.  And they did.  Anyways,  10 of them are sitting in my freezer right now so I can take them to work.  Writing this blog is one way to distract myself.  

Fun with Fondant

Wow, it is good to be back.  I have been super busy studying for a big test I had to take this past wednesday, but now that it is over, I can relax for a whole week before school starts.  For me, relaxing means cooking awesome foods..... obviously.   My week of relaxation also perfectly corresponds with a cake auction at my dad's work that I plan to bake a cake for.  Since most of the cakes I make are just for birthdays, I don't ever feel that much pressure about making them look super professional (don't want to have people think they are store-bought, right??).  However, a cake auction seems like sort of a big deal for me, so I want to make the cook look super good (along with having it taste super good too).  This being said, I cannot deny that pretty much every cake I have ever looked at and been like "wow, this cake is decorated really nicely" is made with fondant.

For those of you who don't know, fondant is basically like frosting dough that you can mold and cut to put on cakes to give that "bakery" appearance.  I have heard that sometimes this good look of fondant compromises its taste.  Therefore, I did my research to find the best-tasting/easiest recipe I could possibly find.  A marshmallow fondant recipe I found looked the most promising, but I was still a little bit skeptical about it so I decided to practice it in a low- risk situation.  Every saturday I tutor kids so I decided to bring them cookies... since bringing them any cookies (not to mention decorated cookies) basically makes their days, I decided if my fondant turned into not-so-(fun)dant I would not feel too bad.  

This endeavor had an even greater risk of failure do to the fact that I decided to make cookies.... in Gertrude.  For those of you that don't remember, Gertrude decides to take all of her pent up anger out on cookies.  Challenge accepted. 

I used the following recipe http://allrecipes.com/recipe/the-best-rolled-sugar-cookies/?scale=15&ismetric=0 with a few modifications.  I quartered the recipe because I only needed about 15 servings rather than 60 servings.  After quartering the recipe, I added a 1/4 cup of powdered sugar just because :) Also, I reduced the over temperature to 350 instead of 400 in an attempt to make it more Gertrude-proof.  This precaution, along with my raising the oven rack and putting the dough on parchment paper, turned out the most successful cookies I have ever made (in Gertrude that is).  

Next, I rolled out the fondant using a ghetto rolling pin (aka a plastic cup.... gotta love college) and used a similarly ghetto cookie cutter (a wine glass) to cut out fondant circles.  I did not have any normal frosting to "glue" the fondant to the cookies, so I decided to just put the fondant onto the cookies straight out of the oven with the hopes it would melt on.  In retrospect, this could have gone horribly, since in a very parallel universe the fondant could have liquified, turning into not-so-(fun)dant. However, that surprisingly did not happen and I have nine beautiful, happy cookies to give to my students today.  Not to mention the fondant tasted pretty good too.  Needless to say, I am happy with this fondant experience and feel confident about buying an absurd amount of marshmallows to make this cake (that will be featured on my next blog) happen!