Gluten Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly spray cookie sheet with cooking spray.
2. In an electric mixer, combine sugar, egg, vanilla and baking powder.  Mix 2-3 minutes on medium-high.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
3. Add peanut butter and mix until combined.  Again, scrape down the sides of the bowl.
4. Mix in by hand the chocolate chips.
5. Scoop 1 ½ inch balls of dough onto the cookie sheet using an ice cream scooper.
6. Press down on dough a crisscross pattern with a fork.
7. Bake 8-10 minutes.  Do not over bake.
8. Let cool on cookie sheet for 3-4 minutes until transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Sugar Cookie Flowers…um, Cupcakes

Wow, the title of this blog post was hard to come up with! hehe. I didn’t know whether to call them cookies or cupcakes because…well, see for yourself. =)

Here are the cupcakes…

Here are the decorated sugar cookies…

And these beauties are the finished product!

See what I mean? I promise the next post will have a less confusing title. hehe. Anyway, I thought these cookies/cupcakes would be a good way to celebrate Spring! It’s officially here! Although, I’d have to say that I’ve been quite confused about time-of-year since arriving in SoCal last week. The temperature has been around 80-85 degrees F this whole time! It makes me feel like we should really be celebrating summer! I have to keep reminding myself that it’s only March. =)

Anyway, more about these cookies/cupcakes…I saw them in Martha Stewart’s Cupcake book last month and knew that I had to make them. The cuteness was irresistible. I have a major weakness for aesthetically pleasing food.

And since the cupcake-shaped Sugar Cookie Pops I made last month turned out to be such a big hit, I knew these would be awesome!

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail on how to make these because I already featured them in the cupcake-shaped pops entry. You can reference it for tips and step by step photos.

Just make sure your flower cookie cutter isn’t too big. Something around 2-3 inches in diameter would be perfect. And get the 6 inch lollipop sticks.

Here are some additional helpful links that I mentioned in my previous post:

Click HERE for Our Best Bites’ Sugar Cookie Decorating Tutorial
Click HERE for Our Best Bites’ Sugar Cookie Pops Tutorial
Click HERE for Our Best Bites’ Basic Sugar Cookie Recipe

Decorating these was really fun! I picked out three colors: white, pink, and yellow. Perfect shades for spring!

I outlined them in white and used yellow for the centers.

Then I very carefully filled in the pink petals.

Allow the icing to dry. Let the cookies sit uncovered for about 24 hours.

(2) The Leafs

These were really easy to do. All you need is some gum paste, a small leaf-shaped cookie cutter, and green food coloring.

Color your gum paste and roll it out. If your gum paste it too sticky, you can use corn starch to dust the surface of your work area.

And there you have it! Easy peasy.

I like to stick the leafs on right away, before they have a chance to harden. When it’s soft, you can bend it slightly in the middle to mimic a real leaf. But I’m getting ahead of myself here…

(3) The Cupcakes

Use your favorite cupcake recipe. Chocolate cupcakes would be awesome too! In retrospect, chocolate probably would’ve been better, huh? hehe. Oh, well. Maybe next time. And use whatever frosting you like! What about cute liners? Maybe green polka-dotted ones! My point is: you can get super creative with these! Go wild!

For the frosting, I used Wilton’s grass tip. Here’s a good tutorial on how to pipe it. I thought it was going to be way hard, but it actually turned out to be quite intuitive! You’ll know what to do when the time comes. hehe. I didn’t like for the grass to be super uniformed. So instead of pulling straight up, I pulled every which way, to make it look more real. Because grass never just grows straight up, you know? It’s more like “artistically messy,” I’d say.

(3) Putting it all together

No explanation needed, really. Stick the cookies in the middle of the cupcakes, then add leafs. Some of them had one, some had two. I’m very unpredictable like that.

Ok, and here’s one more picture. Because I couldn’t resist. =)

Happy Spring and Happy Baking!

Girl Scout Cookie Cupcakes

It’s my favorite cookie time of the year. And yes, there are cookie times of year. Don’t fight it. Acceptance is the key that unlocks the door to happiness.

At least that’s what my Chinese horoscope says. Right now Samoas are here. As are Thin Mints. And Tagalongs. And some weird new flavors that nobody wants. But I’ll forgive them their dried-cranberries-in-a-cookie misstep just this once.

I just can’t resist those cute little gals in uniform in front of the grocery store. I’m their best customer, and especially so this year because I decided to take on a baking project involving my all time fave—the aforementioned Samoas. Crunchy cookie covered in chocolate, caramel and toasted coconut? What could be better?

Making it into a cupcake, of course. You could do this with any of your favorite cookies, Girl Scout or non—see my suggestions at the end of this post. To match the flavors of the Samoa, I chose a basic vanilla cupcake and a frosting lightly flavored with coconut.

I now accept that I am ready to begin. So I will.

First we need to get some coconut milk reducing to make it more concentrated.

Pour a can into a saucepan, bring to a boil, and simmer over medium heat for about a half hour. Give it a stir once in a while. It will froth and get really big, but the liquid is really reducing in there.

Meanwhile, grab the basics: flour, cake flour, sugar, baking powder, salt.

4 eggs. Hippie eggs. I wrote a song about them earlier but I felt it would be inappropriate to share with you.

Unsalted butter. 2 sticks. Cubed.

One cup of whole milk. And I’m definitely not going to share my song about hippie milk with y’all.

Pure vanilla extract. Don’t ever buy imitation vanilla flavoring, pretty please. I will come over and throw it out your window.

And, most importantly? The cookies.

I used two boxes for 24 cupcakes. I accept that there are far too many calories in Samoas alone, let alone in a Samoa cupcake.

Somewhere Jillian Michaels is doing push-ups in her magical trainer castle and plotting what she’ll have in store for me tomorrow.

Stick ‘em in your food processor and pulse away.

Not even close.

Getting closer….

…perfect.

Toss ‘em in a shallow bowl and let’s get ready to make our cupcake batter.

Toss your dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Give it a quick spin on low to combine the powdery stuff.

Throw in your butter…

…and mix just until those little buttery chunks are coated with flour.

Crack your 4 hippie eggs into the milk and add one tablespoon of vanilla.

Mix well.

Add the milk/egg/vanilla mixture to the dry ingredients a third at a time, stopping before each addition to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

One…

two….

…three. It’s alright if it’s a little lumpy. Those little chunks of butter will serve to keep the cupcakes moist.

Now here’s my trick for filling cupcake liners. Grab a big freezer bag and anchor 3 inches of one of the bottom corners under something heavy. Your stand mixer works perfectly for this.

Pour in the batter (I usually hook one edge of the bag onto the little metal thingie that the mixer attachments hook onto. Yes, that is it’s proper name.).

Seal the bag, hold at the corner and cut off the tip. This is for those of us ghetto-fabulous chefs who don’t own pastry bags.

Fill your liners about 1/3 full…

…and then sprinkle on a light layer of the crumbled cookies.

Then squeeze more batter over the top so that the entire thing is about 3/4 full.

Throw into a preheated 325F oven for 17-20 minutes.

By now your coconut milk should be about a quarter of what it once was. It’s also creamy and thick—perfect! Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Ready to make frosting? Combine cream cheese, butter, vanilla, powdered sugar and reduced coconut milk in your mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.

Mix until light and creamy.

Once the cakes are done, set them on a rack to cool completely before frosting.

I’m fairly certain my cupcake army is plotting to take over my home.

Once they’re cool enough, frost with about 1 tablespoon of frosting each. We’re really using frosting in this case to serve as “glue” for the cookie crumbs—we don’t want to overdo it.

After frosting, give ‘em a light dunk in the cookie crumbles.

Perfect!

I found one stray cookie in the box, so he gets the seat of honor.

Uh oh. Maybe he’s commander of the army. I think I’ve just done myself in.

And, just because I feel like being sued for copyright infringement*, I stuck a purdy little Girl Scout logo on one of these beauties.

*Rainy Day Gal has no affiliation with the Girl Scouts. She admires and respects the organization and hopes that they will not sue her, but instead send her boxes and boxes of cookies.

Alright, let’s get down to it: how did they taste?

Pretty darn good. The cake was moist and a tad on the dense side, with a crunchy little layer of cookie halfway down.

The frosting added to the flavor of the cake, but didn’t overpower the taste of the cookies on top.

I simply loved the texture: crunch is always good.

These cakes are not for the faint of heart, however—they are incredibly rich. I would make two Girl Scouts share one.

A chaser of milk is definitely in order.

I now accept that this post has come to an end. But before you go here are some ideas I have for making cupcakes using other flavors of GS Cooks (that’s my new nickname for them. Go with it.):

• For Tagalongs: Ina Garten’s recipe for chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting
• For Thin Mints: Simply Recipe’s chocolate mint cupcakes
• For Dulce de Leche: Sugarlaw’s caramel cupcakes

I hope you’re enjoying Girl Scout cookie season as much as I am! Well, who am I kidding—I don’t think anyone enjoys Girl Scout cookie season as much as I do.

Have a totes fab wed, y’all.

-RDG

Samoa Cupcakes

• One batch Vanilla Vanilla Cupcake batter
• 2 boxes Samoas cookies, pulsed in a food processor until crumbly
• One batch Slightly Coconut Frosting (see below)

Preheat oven to 325F. Fill cupcake liners 1/3 full of batter. Sprinkle a light layer of cookie crumbs on top of batter. Pour the remaining batter on top until liners are about 3/4 full. Bake for 17-20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely. Once cool, spread one tablespoon of frosting on top and then lightly press frosted side of cupcake into cookie crumbs. Makes 24 cupcakes.

Slightly Coconut Frosting

• 1 can coconut milk
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 4 tbsp butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Pour coconut milk into a saucepan, bring to a boil, and simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until reduced by 75%. Let cool. Combine 4 tablespoons of the reduced coconut milk and remaining ingredients and beat until light and creamy. Refrigerate any unused frosting.