Showing posts with label in the kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label in the kitchen. Show all posts
Saturday, April 2, 2011
World's Best Sugar Cookie
The woman decided that we would make some spring sugar cookies this weekend. She's having a hard time eliminating chocolate and cocoa from her diet and is constantly racking her brain for low oxalate approved desserts. Of course, she couldn't make these tasty delights without her right hand penguin.
We used her grandma's coveted recipe, which, she claims, makes the best sugar cookies. The man and I were skeptical of this claim. But we weren't about to dissuade her from making us homemade cookies.
The woman and I made the dough yesterday, so today we just needed to cut out and bake the cookies. That's where I came in to
I decided to only bake half the dough, since I wasn't sure how well these cookies would be received by the man, and I knew the woman wouldn't be able to eat many. This only made two batches of cookies, thank goodness, since I would not only be baking all these cookies, but icing them all by myself as well.
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They don't take long to bake; after 8 short minutes, you have fluffy, beautifully golden, perfectly baked cookies. What can I say, Mr.Penguin is a master baker.
I let the cookies cool completely before I frosted them. We couldn't find Grammy's frosting recipe, so Mr.Penguin whipped up a batch of his own special buttercream icing.
It was difficult to ice all those cookies, especially the small ones. It's hard to hold a knife between your flippers and try to get the icing onto the cookie. It was a lot of work but I managed to make it work.
As for the taste, all I have to say is Grammy sure knew her stuff; she created one addictive sugar cookie,perfect in taste and texture. These aren't even going to last a day. I know that tomorrow the woman is going to have me baking and icing the rest of the dough.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Valentine's Day Delights
This weekend I helped the woman plan and prepare our Valentine’s Day treats. It included lots of chocolate. Soon, the woman must go on a low oxalate diet which means no more chocolate for her. This is not her choice but rather the recommendation of her nephrologist (kidney doctor). So she’s determined to get her fill of chocolate before this new diet starts, probably sometime this week.
First on the list were chocolate peanut butter truffles (peanut butter is also a no-no on the low oxalate diet). I got to help cut them out into hearts and roses then dip them in chocolate. We asked the man to come join us, but for some reason, he wasn’t very in to making them, but he sure is into eating them.
These were really easy to make just melt the chocolate and peanut butter with sweetened condensed milk, shape and let chill before dipping.
These are the roses...
...and here are the hearts.
As you can see, we ended up with a lot of truffles.
In my opinion, for our first attempt at truffles, I think we did a swell job.
Next on the list; chocolate covered strawberries, a classic Valentine’s Day staple. We wanted to be a bit creative with our strawberry decorating, so we searched the internet for inspiration. We decided to try tuxedo strawberries. They looked relatively simple, definitely something we could handle. Umm, not so much. They were way harder to make. I'm not sure if it's because of us or the strawberries. The leaves kept falling off as we dipped them. We tried another approach; using a plastic prong to dip them. But the berries kept falling off the prongs. Still, in the end we managed to salvage some to look acceptable.
Of course, there are still the cake balls we made a week or so ago (to send to my lady) and froze some extra. So we’ll pull those out tomorrow to thaw.
These are just some little nibblers for tomorrow. The woman has intentions of making some kind of dessert for after our dinner. Whether or not it includes chocolate remains to be seen; she’s being pretty secretive about it so it will be a surprise.
The man insists the woman is doing too much, but, deep down, I know he enjoys all the special treats the woman makes him. He may be able to fool the woman, but he can’t fool the penguin.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Decorating Cookies
While away for Christmas I had the chance to decorate sugar cookies. It was nice because all the cookies were already cut out, baked, and cooled. They only needed to be iced and decorated. I was happy to join in on the fun.
There were snowmen,
snowflakes,
gingerbread men,
and most importantly, penguins.
It was a lot of fun and they tasted yummy, too.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Buckeyes
Mr. Penguin is all about holiday treats and baking them. I feel like the woman would be on board if she felt better. The man complains about all the fattening sweets lying around but he eats them anyway. However, he is not about to make, nor help me bake, any. I have such a long list of things I want to try out!
So far, I’ve only been able to make one thing on that list--buckeyes. The woman and I made these last week, right before her symptoms got worse. Luckily, the recipe made a lot of them, so we’re good for a bit on sweets. But I’m hoping this week I can make a new treat. The buckeyes are good, but I would like something different, something a little less sugary. The man has sternly informed me that, as long as the woman’s symptoms remain severe, I can just forget about making any new tasty delights. Therefore, I have been concentrating my healing skills on trying to nurse her back to some semblance of health, or at least back to a level where she can be of use in the kitchen. I’m pretty confident I can get at least one new treat made this week. I will be sure to photo-record any kitchen baking adventure I can accomplish this week to share with my friends and fans.
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