Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies #fbcookieswap

Posted: December 12, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Cookies, Recipe | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments

I have been part of cookie exchanges every year for at least the last 5 Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondiesyears but this is my first year doing an International Cookie Exchange! I took part in the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap this year. Essentially everyone that takes part is matched with 3 bloggers within their country and then they ship one dozen cookies to each of their matches. In turn, you get one dozen cookies from three bloggers that had you as a match. So essentially a huge cookie exchange! I think there were over 600 bloggers involved this year!

I had been looking at this recipe for years – literally! I thought it sounded like an interesting combination but I kept not making it. Finally I did in October and I LOVED it! Gingerbread and white chocolate are perfect together. I don’t know why more sweets don’t use this combination. There is something about the spicy gingerbread that pairs perfectly with the creamy sweetness of the white chocolate. I have now made two other desserts using this combination as well as making this recipe again! And I knew it kept quite well and didn’t crumble so I figured it should work well for an across Canada trek!Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies

The blondies are the perfect chewy texture that is expected of blondies. (For those unfamiliar with blondies, they are essentially brownies without the chocolate – so expect the dense, chewy texture of brownies!) And like I said, the flavour combination is amazing. So in other words,  everyone should make these a regular on their “cookie baking list”. It is definitely on mine. And I don’t mean just for Christmas!

Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies

from Martha Stewart’s Cookies; makes about 4 dozen

Delicious Spices!

  • 2 3/4 cup plus 1 Tb flour
  • 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 1/4 cup butter, room temp
  • 1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 Tb white sugar
  • 2 eggs plus 1 egg yolkSpread Evenly
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/3 cup molasses
  • 2 to 3 cups chopped white chocolate
  1. Line a 12 by 17inch rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350°
  2. Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and spices in a bowl.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or a regular bowl and use a hand mixer), beat butter and sugars until creamy and pale, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs andPrepared Dough yolk one at a time. Add the vanilla and molasses and beat until well combined.
  4. Add the flour mix slowly on low speed until mixed. Stir in the white chocolate.
  5. Spread batter in the prepared pan and bake about 25 minutes – the edges should look slightly cracked and golden.
  6. Allow to cool and then cut!

I found these fun boxes at Winners and they worked perfectly for 12 of the blondies! I hope they shipped ok! The recipe says that the blondies can be stored, air-tight, for up to 1 week at room temperature.

Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies

Packed and Ready to go

Macadamia Nut White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted: June 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

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I know – it has been FOREVER since I last posted something. I will be better now. I really will! I don’t even have any real excuse – too much baking maybe? (In other words, I have done tons of baking but I have been to busy baking & then don’t feel like making effort to post?) Anyways, I am back now!

I don’t like nuts in my baking. But I loved these cookies. I don’t even normally like white chocolate mac nut cookies that much but seriously these were amazing. Chewy & perfect texture. The crunch from the nuts. And the sweet tasty white chocolate pieces. Yum!!

Speaking of Macadamia nuts makes me want to go to Hawaii. I don’t think I ever realized how delicious they are until I went to the Mauna Loa Factory there! Then I was in love. Then I found out that they have the highest amount of fat of all nuts. But if you are eating a cookie with in nuts in them anyways, you may as well have the BEST nuts in there! 🙂

Macadamia Nut White Chocolate Chip Cookies
(adapted from the back of the Ghirardelli White Chocolate Chip package!)

  • Image1 cup butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 cups or 1 pkg white chocolate chips
  • 1 1/2 cups Macadamia nuts, chopped (I went with unsalted)
  1. Preheat oven to 350F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. Beat together butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
  3. Add eggs one at a time and then vanilla and beat.
  4. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Add to dough mix.
  5. Stir in white chips & nuts. Drop/scoop onto cookie sheets.
  6. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden and set around the edges. Allow to cool 2 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Delicious!

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Wedding #2: Cupcakes were on order!

Posted: August 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Cupcakes, Wedding | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

Wedding treats!

So after the success of wedding #1, it was on to the easier and less stressful task of wedding #2 this summer. This bride, a friend of mine, wanted cupcakes and had requested chocolate with coconut frosting and whatever else I wanted to make. Well I already posted the chocolate-coconut cupcakes and the other ones I chose to make were a variation on the strawberry cupcakes I previously posted as well. I won’t repost the recipe but rather just some notes on them since they were actually what I called “Raspberry White Chocolate Cheesecake Cupcakes”.

My stacked fridge! It was hot so I had to make space!

Since the couple was aiming for a “desserts & appies” type of night, I figured cupcakes weren’t enough and made two other creations for the evening, which were Caramel Macchiato Whoopie Pies & the all time favourite Lemon Squares. Of course the Whoopie Pies will have to make an appearance on Let’s Make Whoopie rather than this blog! As for the lemon squares, well I think I will post a couple pics on here but I had a bit of a problem with the lemon squares… I made a double batch of them and therefore made two pans of them. Now here is the weird thing, when I went to cut up the first batch, the entire pan was “inverted”. So the lemon was on the bottom and the crust was on the top. The second pan of them was

about 80% completely fine but at the one end, the same thing had happened – crust on top! So so strange! I have no idea why this happened or what went on but I have found that other people have had the same problem! My only guess is that

upside down lemon squares!

you have to put the lemon filling in the crust while the crust is still hot (it is prebaked). Since I was taking forever to squeeze the lemons, I wasn’t ready with the filling when the crusts were done so they were able to cool. That is the only thing I can think that I did differently from the first time that I made the recipe and they came out PERFECT! So I will not post the recipe here until I know that it works perfectly. I still did take them to the wedding though – the ones that didn’t make nice squares because of the less-than-sturdy base weren’t served there and instead were flipped over, slightly smoothed and taken to my less-than-picky friends! They still tasted amazing but they didn’t look pretty!

More Cupcakes!

I got a little carried away with wanting to do lots of different designs! It was kind of fun but maybe two designs for each flavour would have been better! My favs are the little mini chocolate ones with the little orange rose, or the pink minis with the 2 orange apple blossoms or the ones that just look like big roses (see the pics below! There are big white ones and mini pink ones! I added glitter to them too 🙂 )

Raspberry White Chocolate Cheesecake Cupcakes

Raspberry cupcakes: these were made using the recipe for the strawberry cupcakes found here but instead of strawberries, I used raspberries. 

Cheesecake Filling: I made a cheesecake filling (beat together 4 oz cream cheese, 1/4 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 egg , 1 tsp vanilla) and added a little less than 1 tablespoon to each cupcake prior to baking. The cupcakes don’t look nicely domed after and some end up a little odd shaped, but they taste good!

White Chocolate Buttercream: melt 6 oz white chocolate and allow to cool. Beat on low 1 cup room temp butter, 2 cups of icing sugar, melted white chocolate, and 3 Tb milk until combined. Increase speed to high and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.

The tiered display

An assortment of minis!

Cake from a Box… but done especially for my special family!

Posted: July 15, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Cake, Recipe | Tags: , | 1 Comment

The mix

White Chocolate Cake from a Yellow Cake Mix

I almost never use a mix for baking. This time though, for $3 for a gluten-free (so my mom could enjoy it) mix, I figured it was worth it. And I “kicked-it-up” a bit by adding melted white chocolate! This added some delicious richness to what would have otherwise been just a white cake! I highly recommend this if you are looking for a quick baking experience with a little extra! Basically I just followed the recipe but stirred in 6 oz of melted white chocolate at the end. I also chopped up maybe 2 oz more to just be stirred in. It worked out great!

Now the real reason for this cake was actually for my darling niece’s 5th birthday. As is true for most 5 year olds girls, it had to be pink and purple and pretty! So here it is!