Chocolate Mint Cookies

I don’t care that the holidays are over. I’m still going to pair peppermint and chocolate together. Just try and stop me! When they produce a cookie this good, you won’t think to protest either. If I hadn’t been too lazy to make the icing drizzle, they’d look a whole lot prettier, but 1) I hate dealing with powdered sugar (it gets EVERYWHERE), and 2) I don’t care if it looks pretty, just as long as it tastes fantastic. And these cookies do. Read on – I bet you’re intrigued.

Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookies

Happy One Year, Buttered BlasphAmy!

Happy New Year to all! With the coming of the new year also comes the one year anniversary of Buttered BlasphAmy. Holy crap, I wasn’t exactly sure that I’d make it a year with this project. Granted, at times I slipped off for a couple (or few) weeks, but I never got too far away. I’ve actually averaged just over one post per week overall, which is a little admirable when I think of it. I know, there are plenty of bloggers out there who post daily or even more, but for a casual blogger like myself (read: not professional), I think it’s been a very respectable run. Thank you readers, old and new, for humoring me here on my little piece of the Web.

So what kind of post do I do for such a milestone? I had considered something fancy and intricate, but if you’ve been keeping up with this blog, you’d know that that is usually not my style. So I opted for something with less fanfare. Chocolate chip cookies. That’s a classic, and I can’t believe I haven’t written a post about them yet. That said, here you go: Anniversary Chocolate Chip Cookies with Butterscotch. Here’s to another year of deliciousness and om noming.

Sesame Almond Coconut Shortbread Cookies

Hi folks! Well I couldn’t resist. I had to think up a second recipe for Sophistimom’s and Challenge Dairy’s shortbread cookie contest. I was inspired to do a sort of east-meets-west cookie this time around. After some quick brainstorming, the ideas that I kept circling around back to were of Chinese sesame seed cookies and those pink box almond cookies. Baked sesame seeds have such a unique, nutty, and oily flavor to them that I felt would work great in a shortbread.

Orange Shortbread Cookies with Earl Grey Cream

Oh me, oh my. For anybody who’s ever been to a high tea service, you know that it’s all about the scones, tea sandwiches, and of course, the shortbread cookies. Oh and the tea. Obviously. Earl Grey is one of my favorite types of teas, and lucky for me, it’s also a popular choice for tea service.

So what better way to get my shortbread and tea fix than to combine both into a single bite-sized disk of deliciosity? (Yay for making up words.) I have to thank Sophistimom for pushing me to find the inspiration for this particular recipe. You see, she and Challenge Dairy are running a contest to win… get this… FREE BUTTER for a year. Those must be the two most beautiful words in existence. Put them next to each other and you get some cosmic pastry synergy going on. “Free” has to come first though, or else that creates a much sadder state of things. But I digress. On to the cookies!

Challah Bread

Challah (or sometimes, hallah), is a traditional Jewish egg bread. And it is delicious.  It makes a very tender sandwich bread that marries well with cold cuts, but I fell in love with it in the form of French toast.  I’m drooling just thinking about it.

For this recipe, I turned to my handy copy of the Joy of Cooking. Challah takes a bit of patience to make since you have to give it two full risings, but the effort is worth it! If the loaf isn’t gone within the first day or two, use any leftovers in your favorite French toast recipe. Trust me on this one. Would I ever lead you astray? Don’t believe me? Pinch My Salt agrees with me. If you listen to no one else, listen to her.

Classic Apple Pie

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I wanted to post another pie recipe for you. In my household, I was always at odds with my older brother during the holidays. I’ve been putting together Thanksgiving dinner for my family since I was 16, but I am a lover of pumpkin pie and my brother is not so much so. Oh, and my mom is partial to lemon meringue. That said, many a year we would end up with multiple pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Not that I’m complaining. There’s no such thing as too much pie!

Honey Pumpkin Pie

Alright, I’m finally sitting down to write this post.

To give away one of my best-kept baking secrets. (I’m reconsidering it as I’m writing this sentence.)

So I’ve been putting off this post for a while now, because I selfishly wanted to keep the glory and fame to myself. This is how much I love this pie. I live and die by this pumpkin pie recipe, guys. Yes, it’s *that* good! But now I’ll finally play nice and share the recipe with you. Such deliciousness should be shared and spread to as many people as possible. It is the season for giving thanks and being selfless, so let me try to embrace that.

May this recipe bring you the joy it’s brought to me! No more cloyingly sweet pumpkin pies that reek of corn syrup. No more one-note pumpkin pies that leave you wanting something more. This pie puts a smile in my belly every fall. Enjoy!

Icebox Pinwheel Cookies

Well I’m alive after a vacation in NYC and the lovely parting gift I got there, affectionately named The Stomach Flu. As I start the ball rolling again, today I present to you icebox pinwheel cookies. According to my copy of Joy of Cooking, icebox cookies got their name because the cookie dough needed to be refrigerated before rolling and cutting, or slicing, or what have you not. The refrigeration is in fact optional, and if you’re impatient like I am most of the time, you can just skip that step and use the recipe below for drop cookies.

I *Need* a Pizza Stone

Tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, parmesan, asiago, romano.

Okay, so a couple of things. First, JM has effectively ruined pizza for me. I’m going to have to carry a bottle of white truffle oil around in my purse all the time now… you know, “just in case.” Secondly, if you’re going to make pizza, please get a pizza stone. Please, please, with a chunk of mozzarella on top.

Espresso Chocolate Cheesecake, Revisited

So a while back I did a post about this Espresso Chocolate Cheesecake. At that particular time, I wasn’t baking it for any particular reason other than to fatten up friends and coworkers. I whipped the recipe out again this time for a special occasion though. It was LC’s birthday this weekend, and I was out of ideas for what kind of cake to make her. Luckily KC gave me an easy way out: cheesecake.

Now can I just start by saying that my cheesecakes never come out pretty? They always taste great, but they never resemble anything close to what you find in a restaurant or store. Go figure. I’ll have to work on it. But hey, the awesomet hing about a cheesecake is that even if it’s ugly, you can mask it with a nice coating of chocolate.