Flea Market Fancy

Help me bring back the Flea Market Fancy fabric!

Chocolate Wakeups

Well these cookies had an unexpected ingredient in them - my kids all guessed that there was cinnamon in them, but could not guess the other ingredient. It was fun watching them throw out guesses. Once my 6 year old found out what it was - she stopped eating them. That didn't stop her from dowing 5 of the cookies before she found out however.


The recipe actually called for 1 pinch of black pepper and 1 pinch of cayenne pepper. I was a bit nervous adding this to a cookie mixture so my pinch was not so generous. You can still taste a bit of a snap while eating them. The time it's really noticed is a few minutes afterwards - I got a bit of a burning in the back of my throat. Nothing major, just enough to make me want to eat another one!

The recipe called for coarse sugar to be put on the cookie before baking and all I had on hand was a pink sugar from my daughter's 6th birthday cake - so I used it. It was great. My 2 year old helped with that part.

I do have pictures of all this and I think I've figured out how to post them. Will work on it tomorrow when I've had some sleep.

Oh - tomorrow's cookie - I think I want to take a break from chocolate. I'm making Orange Blossoms. It's an orange butter type cookie with an orange cream frosting. Yum!

Peace Out,
Natalie

Chocolate Chip Cookies

My first experiment was quite interesting. Everyone who had already eaten my chocolate chip cookies before actually prefered the "everyday" ingredients. The ingredients that are picked up at any grocery store. Nothing fancy. Nothing different.
However, people who hadn't tasted my cookies before prefered the "special" ingredients. They said that the cookies were more "robust" in flavor.
So now the question begs to be asked - did the first batch of votes just vote out of a memory of previous cookies? Did they just prefer them, because that's what they are used to?
I don't know...the more I think about it, the more I think I should have done the whole experiment with a cookie that didn't involve chocolate. I really think the chocolate masked some of the other flavors. The butter and vanilla mainly.
However....I did walk away with the knowledge my family isn't hard to please. The ranted and raved about cookie "b" (the everyday one) - I'm sure full well thinking it HAD to be the more expensive ingredients one.

The differences came in the form of butter: one was regular Costco butter, and the other was "European butter", vanilla: one was Schilling Vanilla Extract, and the other was Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla, chocolate shavings: one was Hershey, and the other Lindt, chocolate chips: one was Nestle Toll House, and the other was Guittard, oatmeal: one was Quaker Oats, the other Snoqualmie Falls, flour: one was Pillsbury All-Purpose Flour and the other King Arthur All-Purpose Flour and finally the sugar: one was regular granulated sugar and the other was vanilla bean infused bakers sugar.

My neighbors liked the texture of the everyday cookie because it was more crispy. They said someone who likes their cookie more chewy would have preferred the other. I actually think that came down to the different types of sugar used. I think the Bakers Sugar, with it's very small granuals, mixes more evenly and melts more thoroughly. We'll see with the other cookies it the days to come.

So - the winner - hands downs - "Everyday, nothing special ingredient, cookie" - Yipee!!!

Peace Out,
Natalie

Skip to My Lou

I hope you will join Skip to My Lou all month long for tutorials on handmade gift ideas. She did this last year and soon all those ideas along with new ideas will be organized neatly for you in the Skip to my Lou Handmade Gift Guide. Just click on the link below.
I'm doing it - join me.
Peace Out,
Natalie

Vanilla Sugar

I made vanilla sugar tonight with my daughter. The recipe calls for one vanilla bean to two cups of sugar but since my budget doesn't really allow for that much vanilla bean to that little sugar, I actually doubled the amount of sugar used. I don't know the average length of a vanilla bean, but mine was pretty long, so I got all the seeds out AND I chopped up the bean itself and mixed in all in the sugar. I did take pictures so I will get those up as soon as I learn how.

I am starting with chocolate chip cookies tomorrow. I have a recipe that my family loves that I actually got almost 20 years ago. It supposed to be the "Mrs. Fields" recipe - but it's not. What I'm going to be doing tomorrow is this.....I'm going to make this recipe twice. The first time with the more expensive of the ingredients that I've purchased (i.e. bakers sugar, madagascar vanilla, european butter, etc.) then I'm going to make the second batch with normal, run of the mill, at every store, every day type items. We'll see if family can tell the difference and/or which recipe they actually prefer.

Exciting stuff - I know I told you I would post the recipe ahead of time - but I can't get to it tonight, so I will post it tomorrow and be sure to save the recipe. Regardless of what ingredients used, it will be delish!

Peace Out,

Natalie

I'm Gobsmacked!

I did it! I made a cute little Halloween page. This is AWESOME! I just went to a website called http://www.myonecuteblog.com/ and followed her directions. I don't know how to link it from here but I will figure that out. I promise!
Don't you love the witch? THE WITCH IS IN!!

Peace Out,
Natalie