White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

This past weekend I decided to browse through the Bulk Barn - very dangerous! I felt in the mood to make something, but I wasn't sure what, so I looked through the Bulk Barn isles for some inspiration. Luckily I found it in the form of macadamia nuts. As soon as I saw them I knew I was going to use them to make White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies. I've always loved them, but had never tried to make them myself. So I grabbed the macadamia nuts and some white chocolate chips and headed back home. 

The recipe I used is my favourite regular chocolate chip recipe that I just tweaked.


Ingredients
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup softened butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 large egg
2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups white chocolate chips
macadamia nuts (to taste, I just added as much as looked proportionate)

Method
Heat oven to 375. Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and egg in a large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt and then add white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts.
Bake for 7 to 10 minutes or until light brown. After 1 to 2 minutes transfer to wire rack to cool.

My favourite part of baking is eating a warm cookies fresh out of the oven. I wasn't disappointed, they tasted just like I remembered they should.

Happy Crafting,

PS: Here's where we link up.

Sugar Cookies in Painted Heart

Classes are ending for the semester and we're celebrating with a potluck on Friday. This is the perfect time to use my new heart shaped cookie cutter.

I used a recipe from Martha Stewart which can be found here.
Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons brandy, or milk
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 

  
  Directions:
• 1. Whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar; mix until light and fluffy. With mixer running, add egg, brandy, and vanilla; mix until well combined. With the mixer on low, slowly add reserved flour mixture. Mix until just combined.
  2. Transfer dough to a work surface. Shape into 2 discs, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
  3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with nonstick baking mats or parchment paper; set aside.
  4. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes, and transfer to prepared baking sheets, leaving an inch in between. Leftover dough can be rolled and cut once more. Bake until lightly golden, about 10 minutes; do not allow to brown. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

 I decided to "paint" them before I baked them, because I ran out of icing sugar in honour of our art class. I took an egg white and mixed it with 1/4 tsp of water. Then I separated it into three bowls added some food colouring. I used a paintbrush and painted on my heart shapes. After they were all painted up nicely I baked them as directed at the end of step 4.

I can't wait to party with my new friends on Friday! In the meantime, my husband will love these in his lunch to work.

Happy Baking,

PS: Here's where we link up.

{Amazing} Chocolate Toffee Bars

Happy Friday Everyone! We've made it through another week. Here is a great recipe for you to make this weekend. It's easy and won't take up a lot of time so you can relax in the beautiful weather.

I first made this for my grandparent's 12.5 year anniversary. My sister made the cake. Remember the cakes she made for her daughter's first birthday and for our parents' anniversary? You can check out more of her amazing, edible creations here.

 It was a wonderful day with family and I was glad I could contribute something yummy.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup baking cocoa

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips, divided

1 pkg. Skor bits

1. Combine flour, sugar, and cocoa. Cut in butter until it looks like course crumbs.

2. Stir in eggs and set aside 1 1/2 cups of mixture for topping.

3. Press remaining mixture into a greased 9 x 13' baking pan. 

4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 6-8 minutes or until set.

5. In a saucepan, combine sweetened condensed milk and 1 cup chocolate chips. Stir on low heat until melted. Spread over crust.

6. Sprinkle Skor bits over, reserving 1/4 cup.

7. Combine reserved crumb mixture and remaining chocolate chips. Carefully sprinkle over the Skor bits. 

8. Bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. 

9. Sprinkle remaining Skor bits over baked bars. Cool before cutting. 

Don't forget to come back tomorrow, when we'll be trading blogs with Pumpkin Loves.

Happy Crafting,

PS: Here's where we link up.

Peep Anniversary Party: Part 1

Hello! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I certainly did! On Sunday my family got together to celebrate my parents' 26 wedding anniversary. My sisters and I really wanted to make it a wonderful day for our parents so we set to work. After seeing so many great Easter parties on all of your blogs I knew I had to make this a peep party. At the risk of sounding super cheesy,  go to Youtube and turn on Angel by Shaggy. This was the theme song for the anniversary party. Yes, it's lame, but this song came on the radio as I was planning this and it was beyond perfect.

The first thing that had to be made was the peep garland. You'll remember this picture from the sneek peek on Friday.

That turned into this!

It fit perfectly in my parents' dinning room. I found the idea from Two Sasters. Check out their peep garland here. What I liked about their garland was that it was no sew. You saw last week how my sewing turned out. So I just cut out the peeps from felt and used my handy-dandy glue gun to stick them to the ribbon. I must find a better way to hang things like this because it fell down twice! Any ideas there?

One of my favourite parts of the party was that we brought out my mom's fine china. We have probably used it only a couple of time so it was nice to have it out again. Isn't it beautiful? They got it for their engagement, so it was fitting to use it for their anniversary party. 

A while ago I made some etched jars and this was the perfect opportunity to use them. I'll share how I made them later this week.

The next thing to think about was food. With my oldest sister being in the cake business we had an automatic centre piece for our table. She made a wonderful Coconut Cream Pie cake and decorated it with (what else?) PEEPS. I love the rustic look of the cake with the coconut on the outside. It makes the peeps less cheesy and much more classy.

Please check out her website for more cakes at cakedujour.webs.com
Her cakes are wonderfully decorated and oh! so delicious.

As always, we had way too much food. I baked some Raspberry Coconut Macaroons. You can find the recipe here. And Courtney brought her Speculaas Cookies. Find her recipe here.

There are many more elements of this party that I'd like to share with you. So stay tuned for tomorrow as we look at more fun party ideas.

Happy Crafting,
Kristin

PS: I linked up here...

A little Dutch cookie goodness

Coming from a Dutch background I was raised in a household where we went to the "dutch store" regularly to stock up on all sorts of dutch treats. My mom also made us a lot of good dutch meals and snacks too, and they're all high on my list of favourites!

One such dutch treat are Speculaas Cookies, the recipe for which I'm going to share with you today. There are a lot of different recipes out there, but this is the one I got from my Mom. This was the first time I actually made them, but they were very easy, and tasted just as good as I remembered them!

Ingredients:

½ lb. butter (or 1 cup)

2 eggs

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

3 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp nutmeg

½ tsp cloves

½ tsp ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp allspice

¼ tsp salt

almond slices

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Mix together the butter, eggs and both sugars. Then slowly add in the flour a cup at a time, and then add in the rest of the ingredients, except for the almond slices. Mix well and then spread onto three (I only filled two) greased cookie sheets (with edges). Sprinkle the almond slices on top.

Bake in oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Once cooled cut into squares and enjoy!

I've also seen people use cookie cutters so that the cookies come out in fun shapes instead of just plain squares, and of course you can skip the almond slices if you want. I hope you enjoy this little dutch treat. Do you have any special treats from your background or heritage?

Happy Baking,

Courtney

I linked up here: