Posted: March 18th, 2011 | Author: bettybecca | Filed under: BettyBecca Bakes, Come Together, On the Basics, Our Favorites, Store-bought Remix | No Comments »
A couple of years ago for Christmas, my mom gave me this little jewel. It’s a cookie compendium. One of our favorite recipes is the one for chocolate chip cookies from Neiman Marcus.
COOKIES *nom nom nom*
This cookie has it all. It’s chewy. And crunchy. And delish!
There’s a funny story behind it, too.
The recipe
A mom and her daughter were having a snack at a Neiman Marcus cafe. The cookies they were enjoying were delightful, and the mom asked for the recipe. The server said, “Sure, but we have to charge two-fifty for it.”
The mom got home and checked her credit card receipt. The store had charged $250, not $2.50, for the recipe. She vowed to share it with everyone to get her money’s worth. Who knows if the story is true, but it’s still fun (and delicious).
Milk and Cookies
Preheat the oven to 375.
Ingredients List
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 1/2 cups (8 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips (or more to taste)*
Beat the butter and sugar together, and add the egg and vanilla.
Sift together the remaining dry ingredients. Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and mix in the chocolate chips.
Drop by the spoonful onto a greased baking sheet (or use parchment paper). Bake for 8-10 minutes.
I use a disher to drop the dough (1.5 teaspoon or 1 tablespoon, depending on desired size). The ones shown above are the smaller size.
*It also calls for 1 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder, which I leave out because Mr. J doesn’t like coffee.
Posted: February 28th, 2011 | Author: bettybecca | Filed under: BettyBecca Bakes, On the Basics, Store-bought Remix | 1 Comment »
Yes, buttercream is a basic. Haha! I love buttercream. It is one of my favorites. I think fondant is overrated, and after my cake decorating class where I learned how to make buttercream really smooth, I don’t see a need for fondant-covered cakes at all. I did enjoy making flowers out of fondant. I even bought a bucket of fondant to practice my flower-making skills. Maybe one of these days, I’ll get around to trying it out and post some pics!
1 cup (2 sticks) butter (room temperature)*
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1b. 10X powdered sugar, sifted
1-3 teaspoons milk, half and half or cream
- Using a mixer, cream softened butter and vanilla until smooth.
- Add sugar gradually, allowing butter and sugar to cream together before adding more. Scrape down sides with a rubber spatula if needed. (TIP: I use my KitchenAid mixer to make this. To avoid a cloud of powdered sugar in the air, I place a kitchen towel around the top of the mixer and around most of the sides. They make a plastic guard for this purpose, but I find that the towel works just fine.)
- If you want your frosting a little creamier, add a teaspoon of milk at a time and beat on high until you get the right texture.
- Then, just use icing colors or food coloring
to tint the frosting the color of your choice.
This is usually just enough for a 2-layer cake, so I would recommend doubling this for a three-layer. I like a lot of frosting.
*Note: Cooking and baking requires you to plan ahead. This means putting frozen meat in the fridge to thaw ahead of time, allowing time for bread or pizza dough to rise, and setting butter (and other ingredients) out of the fridge to come up to room temp. Thankfully, sometimes there are short cuts for those of use who are prone to forgetting. Check out this trick to softening butter in the microwave without melting it from Real Simple magazine.
