COPYCAT - Mother's Taffy Sandwich Cookies

I've been conducting some experiments lately in which I seek to copy some of my favorite store-bought cookies.
I've always loved Mother's Taffy Cookies. BTW - Anyone know why they are called Taffy cookies?? Coconut Cookies seems more fitting..

Anyway, I simply googled "mother's taffy cookie recipe" and found the following recipe below.

They didn't really remind me of the Taffy Cookies at all. The filling was cloyingly sweet and didn't firm up appropriately, so I didn't use it. I just rolled the cold dough into balls and baked them. I got a pretty rich, nutty, buttery cookie that I actually liked very much!

Mother's Taffy Sandwich Cookies - Copycat recipe

Cookie:

3/4 cup flaked coconut, (measure before toasting & grinding)
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
Cream filling (recipe below)

Spread flaked coconut on a cookie sheet and toast under 
a broiler until golden brown . Grind toasted coconut to 
a cornmeal like consistency in a food processor.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Stir in 
ground toasted coconut. Mix well.

In another bowl beat butter, granulated sugar, brown 
sugar and vanilla extract with a mixer until creamy. Add 
eggs, one at a time and beat well after each addition. 
Gradually beat in flour mixture. Mix until smooth.

Divide dough in half. Shape each half into a disc 1/2 inch thick. 
Wrap each disc of dough in plastic wrap. 
Place in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.

When dough is chilled, preheat oven to 375-degrees F.

Roll out dough on floured surface until it is about 1/8 inch thick. 
Sprinkle flour over dough if needed to prevent sticking. 
Cut out cookies with a 1 x 1 1/2-inch rectangular shaped cookie cutter.

Place cookies onto cookie sheets. Drag a fork along the length of each 
cookie to form grooves and roughen the top surface.

Bake at 375-degrees F for 9 to 11 minutes, until cookies are slightly golden brown.

Place baked cookies on wire rack to cool.

When cooled, spread cream filling (recipe below) on 
smooth side of one cookie and press smooth side of 
another cookie on top to form a cookie sandwich.
Press cookies together until filling shows at sides. 

Use about 1 teaspoon of cream filling for each cookie pair. 
Use a small metal spatula to dip in filling and spread on cookie center. 

Place cookies back on wire racks and allow cookie filling to dry for several hours. 
Store cookies loosely covered.


Cream filling:

2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup chilled Whipped honey (also known as spun honey)
4 tsp hot water
1 tsp vanilla extract

Using a fork, stir together until blended, 
confectioners' sugar, chilled Whipped honey, water and 
vanilla; filling will be sticky. If needed, stir in more 
confectioners' sugar to make the filling easier to work with.

Makes about 2 dozen sandwich cookies.

Markets & Macarons

As some of you know, I'm a farmer's market junkie. I LOVE them. Today, I hit up the Crossroads Market and was SO excited to find a lovely lady selling French Macarons!! She had the cutest booth - decorated boho-chic-ish with subtle colors that matched her bright macarons. Her biz name is Lilli-Pilli. I asked her a few questions, since getting in on the farmer's market circuit is my goal at the moment, and I found her very nice and helpful! So, when I got home, I looked her up online and read through her blog, and was thrilled with what I found!! Season, local, tasty is her thing. Love that. I will be seeing her again soon!!

Sweet Cakes Kirkland

So, I got myself a job. I'm now working weekends as a decorator at Sweet Cakes in Kirkland. I'm very excited about what I'll lean here!!!

Peanut Butter Criss Crosses Part 1

I wanted to bake something simple to ease off my Jameson Bottle Cake. That's what I always go back to.. simple, timeless, tasty shit that my mom used to make kind of baking.... That's what I want to eat! I don't get the appeal of sculpted cakes, really... but I have fun making them... as long as the money is right.
Anyway, as I embark on my endeavor to find the best recipe for the basics that everybody knows and loves, I've decided to start with Peanut Butter Criss Cross Cookies. A peanut butter criss cross is supposed to be smallish, 2-3 inches in diameter. It should be crisp and melt in your mouth. It should remind you of your mom, and school, and probably the 80's. I'm trying this recipe from simplyrecipes.com. Dough is the freezer.....
I want them to come out looking exactly like these:

And they DID! This recipe was a success... look no futher.. this is THE Peanut Butter Criss Cross recipe I'll keep!

Peanut Butter Cookies

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

METHOD

1 Cream the butter for 2 minutes. Add the sugars, cream for 2 more minutes. Mix in the peanut butter and egg. Mix together the dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir into the sugar butter mixture.

2 Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate at least 3 hours.

3 Preheat oven to 375°F. Shape dough into 1 1/4 inch balls. Place about 3 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten in crisscross pattern with a fork. Bake until light brown, 9 to 10 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for a minute; transfer to rack to cool completely.

Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

For chewier cookies, bake at 300°F for 15 minutes.

Simply Recipes http://simplyrecipes.com

Peanut Butter Criss Crosses Part 2

It was MY opinion that these peanut butter cookies f*$%ing fantastic, so I sent them to work with the Dr to see what others had to say.
One lady loved them and could not stop eating them.
SEAN, however, thought they were "a bit dry" and he prefers his "a bit more on the softer side". I'm not one to reject constructive criticism, but sorry SEAN... you want a soft peanut butter cookie?? Well then go to Mrs Fields. bleh.
The next day, Sean received a special cookie from me... a sugar cookie, tagged and tied up in its own special bag, nicely decorated with pinks and yellows, with a special message which read "Fuck Off Sean"...

Coors Light Cake

I had high hopes for this cake. I mean, really high hopes. I think it turned out ok. I'm a little pissed that it's not perfect.

Meghan emailed me at the last minute for a Coors Light cake for Elizabeth's boyfriend's birthday. I'm not a fan of sculpted cakes, but for beer, I'll make an exception. 

For the cake, I made a white almond sour cream cake and filled it with milk chocolate ganache. 

Thanks to a tip from Bake at 350, I had just bought these edible markers, and they saved my ass in this project!

Final Product:

Cute, Tasty Shit

I'm just going to do some good old filter blogging for a bit since I have no idea what I'm doing and that's about the only thing that will keep me from freaking out and submitting my resume to some horrid wealth management firm. I'm seriously lacking direction and confidence, so I'm just going to capture things I like or find interesting and hopefully soon, I'll see a trend.

Alissa sent me a daily reflection today, which is always very inspirational:


"If you love babies and cameras and are a stay at home mom, that doesn’t mean you can automatically become a professional baby photographer.  I’m just saying because everyday, I swear a new friend on FB becomes one.  It is not hard to put a sleeping baby in a knitted cap and take a picture.  You added a headband!   How whimsical and creative!!  NO!"

Which prompted me to look up headbands on Etsy...which lead searching for royal icing decorations, baking shiz,etc etc. I could have an etsy shop! Here we go... Another tangent. But seriously, today I found out that one of my favorite cake decorating supply stores, Layer Cake Shop, started their biz with only 7 items on Etsy. Look at them now!

All I want to do is help kids and bake cute, tasty shit. Whatever i want. Whenever i want. For whomever i want. That's it. I don't even care about making money.

StruGgling!

I'm continuously struggling with finding a clear concept for my business.. I think because I'm still unsure of what I want my life to look like. According to Mrs. Slim, I need to build my business around my ideal life. What is my ideal life? Now is probably not the best time to think about this, since I feel like a wretched swine of a woman.
I've not even showered today. It was only about an hour ago (it's 10:30pm) that I washed yesterday's make-up off and brushed my teeth. For dinner I ate chili, a couple black olives, and some pineapple tidbits...throw in a tuna jello mold and you have a dinner party straight from 1979. Later, I had a handful of reeses peanut butter baking chips, a scoop of rainbow chip icing, and leftover choco/van swirl frozen yogurt from a trip to Costco a few weeks ago. Yes, I said a few weeks ago. I even went so far as to scrap the gooey film off the top to get to the good stuff. Disgusting. I can't believe I even wrote that down. This is a lose-lose situation. I think I'll save thinking for tomorrow.

Jameson Whiskey S@%*Show 2011

Coors Light Cake girl's mom, who is also a caterer, called on Tuesday for a Carrot/Coconut cake for Thursday. Somewhat last min, but that's ok with me. No problem, I thought! However, when I started asking for more details, how many people, where to deliver to, etc... things started getting scary. My simple, no prob, carrot cake suddenly turned into a carrot cake made to look like a Jameson Whiskey bottle and needed to serve 45 people. That's a big cake, and I have one day to make it.... with a 5 year old in tow.
I emailed her back and let her know that I wasn't sure I had all the necessary supplies to make a cake shimmer green like a bottle, but that I would let her know that evening. She replied with some more info... that it was Pat's 50th bday. He has ALS. This would totally make his night! Weeelllll Sheeeeit! How do you say no to that? ....You don't, and I was happy to give it my best shot.
So I made it work, extremely inefficiently and def not cost effective, but it came together.
Here's how my baking shitshow progressed:

• Wed am: Ask Scott to pick up Soph from school so I could make my craft store rounds that morning.
• 10am: Collected all my coupons (joann's, Michaels, party city ALWAYS have 40 - 50% off one item type coupons)
• 10:15am -Woman on a mission. Stole the 550 to ride in style as I cruise the craft store strip (aka, crossroads). With JoAnn's, Michaels, and Party City all next door to each other, this is where you'll score the good shiz. 
• 10:30am - Fist stop - Party City since I got a tip that Duff Goldman's  blue, yellow, and red fondant were half off. I figured I'd be able to use the blue and yellow to make green and use it in other projects, regardless. So I snatched up somma da and quickly walked the isles looking for yellow signs that might indicate a good deal... SCORE.... cake boxes all sizes 70cents, suckaaa!! Gimme!
• 10:35am - 2nd Stop - Starbucks - 5 shots on ice plaheeeeze. They know me round deez parts. 
• 10:40am - 3rd Stop - JoAnns. I have a 40% off one item coupon, but wasn't sure what I needed. Sheet cake pan and cake boards.. biguns. 13x19. Sweet. I also bought a book - 1000 ways to Decorate Cookies... it was a good idea at the time, but later realized I would have got more out of lighting the 20 dollars on fire... meh.. can't win em all. Oh.. and paintbrushes, a variety pack. 
• 11am - 4th Stop - Michael's: Gold Luster Dust, Wilton white fondant, Moss green food coloring
• 11:15am - 5th Stop - QFC - Baby Carrots, Coconut, Cream Cheese, coke zero (duh)
• 11:30am - 6th Stop - Home. Let the baking begin. 

My plan was to get all the ingredients ready and measured out for two batches of the carrot/coconut cake, but not actually mix/bake until after Sophia's Dance Class. Ready... switch gears:

• 1:30pm -7th stop - Dance Class @ NW Ariels. A brief break from my morning chaos. I watch Sophia's gymnastics for about 30 min, then she goes to dance, where I can't see her. So, I sit on a hard blue chair in a room with blue carpet on every wall, alone with my ex husband.... du du dunnnn... Not really. I have the most amazing ex husband in the world.
• 2:45pm - 8th Stop - Home

We are FINALLY ready to bake the cake. I love making carrot cake because it's so easy. So I made two batches using this recipe in separate bowls, then baked on 11X15 sheet cake and one 8" square cake. 

While the cakes were chillin', I made Soph dinner, read her some stories, bathed her, put her to bed, etc... then I got down with turning the fondant green. What a horrible experience. I was having a really hard time getting the dark green bottle color, so I gave up and decided I'd just paint it with food coloring after I got in on the cake.

Anyway.. the cake basically took all night, but I'm happy to say that everyone was totally psyched when they saw it.

Sukha Sweets...

I like this word. Gary used it today in yoga. It was notable because it kind of sounds like sugar, and even in my deepest practice, it is still in the forefront of my mind. Seriously, when told to "find my driste" or whatever, I'm envisioning big puffs of pink cotton candy. I don't remember what he said it meant.. i thought he said "release".. so I googled it and got these meanings:
Happiness
Ease
Pleasure
Bliss

It was a good thing for me to google today, since it is SO what I need to focus on - just chillin out and focusing on what's important.. friends, family, truth...

Maui: Round 2

Quitting my job may have been the best thing I've ever done for myself. It's really allowed me to realize the importance of TIME and the role it plays in happiness. I have TIME now!! The amount I get to spend with Sophia has probably increased 500%. I have TIME to work out. I have TIME to be happy. I have TIME to sleep. I have TIME to eat. I have TIME to enjoy things I never thought I would... and that includes travelling to Maui with The Dr. twice in 6 weeks. This last trip to Maui was amazing. While The Dr. rode 450 miles on his bike, I had a lot of time to think about my business.

We stayed at the Seabreeze Inn in a little surf town on the North Shore called Pa'ia. It's basically a fancy hostel with 4 rooms to rent by the night, a shared kitchen, a pool, hot tub, snorkeling beach, etc. I'd call the architecture of the house very Hemingwayesce or something and the interior decor, um.., 80's African eclectic... It's random to say the least but oozing with character - as is the owner, Mark Reedy. He's a relaxed, 50 year old (although he looks 40), surfer/musician dude who pops in and out quietly to make sure everyone has what they need. We LOVED it there, and it will most likely be the place we stay from here on out.

Before leaving on the trip, I baked some Coconut-Lime White Chocolate Macaroons for Brad to take into work. They were somewhat of a peace offering to his nurses asking for them to "please not hate me for going to Maui twice in a month"... so I named them the "Don't Hate" cookies. They were somewhat of a random creation, but turned out yummy and pretty! Check out more pics on my facebook page: www.facebook.com/Sophisticookie

Can't win em all...

Very little else could have gone wrong with this cake. It was supposed to be a "simple yellow cake with chocolate filing, decorated like a pink gift with white trim". $30.
First, I got the cake filled and frosted, which is the most difficult part, in my opinion. And as I was moving it to the decorating station, I dropped it. I wanted to scream! It was 2pm and Brianne was coming at 4pm to pick it up. I wanted to give up.... but I didn't. The cake sucked. I owe Brianne a freebee. I don't really want to talk about it anymore. I hate baking. Happy 60th Andrea.

Leftover Royal Icing

Sophia and I had a great time making little flowers out of our leftover royal icing. We let these dry over night, bag them, and use them for decorations on cakes and cupcakes. It beats spending $3 for 6 of them at a cake supply store!

Sophia pretended to enjoy it, but while her eyes were glued to the television, she concluded that it was "an awkward motion" and handed the pastry bag back over.