Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

I'm sure everybody has baked Chocolate Chip Cookies before. My first baking endeavor was Betty Crocker's Chocolate Chip Cookie mix. And my son was satisfied with it for the longest time...until I found this recipe online and after so many attempts and tweaking - have become our almost weekly go-to craving fix. My craving to bake something, anything. My son's craving for sweets.

Every time I bake cookies, my son would say, "Mom, this is the best chocolate chip cookies in the world!" It makes me smile and completes my day. But, you know, he's my son. Of course, he'd say that. Right? He's 5.

But last Saturday, I had a surprise visit from a friend/ex-coworker/churchmate and her family. We had Panda Express to-go for dinner and I baked my cookies. I heard her daughter say, "Mom, this is the best cookies I've ever had!" I pretended not to hear it. My friend asked her daughter to repeat what she said to me. Awww...see? I'm smiling again.

Anyway, so I guess it means it's good enough to share. I love sharing. Gotta spread the love.

Crostata! - November '10 Daring Bakers

The last quarter of the year is always the busiest for me. My eldest celebrates his birthday in October, mine's in November and my husband's birthday is in December. So, please forgive me if my blogs has slowed down quite a bit. Aside from the birthdays making me busy, it's the holiday season, too.

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

I did my best to squeeze in this month's baking challenge by making it for Thanksgiving. We went to my in-laws' house for the get-together. It was a challenge trying to bake in Mom's busy kitchen on Thanksgiving Day. It was a rush and I didn't get to take a lot of pictures.

Crostata...sounds intimidating. But at the same time, sounds delicious, too, right? Anyway, it's basically Italian tarts. A quick Google search, and I found that it's traditionally made without the tart tin and can be filled with anything you like.

Red, White & Blue Cake

I probably should wait to publish this around the Independence Day holiday. But this was the cake I made after the Flower Pot Cake. And I wanted to follow that sequence until I get updated. Make the cake, then post about it a few days later.

Anyway, I made this for my brother-in-law to welcome him home from Iraq. He was gone for almost 5 whole months and we were so glad to have him back safe in our arms. Thus, the patriotic theme and the "Welcome Home". This is quite simple and very easy to make.

Chocolate Crinkles

When I was in High School, a classmate would bring Chocolate Crinkles and all of us will try to get our hands on it. I'd be lucky if I could get a bite. So, I felt deprived. When I saw this recipe online, I knew I just have to do it - all those years of deprivation! *tears* Hehehe

I took step-by-step pictures. But unfortunately, my ever efficient husband thought I've already saved them on our computer that he has deleted all of the pictures. But it's really very easy. What's hard is trying to resist the urge of devouring them all in one sitting.

Let's Go Nuts for Doughnuts! - October '10 Daring Bakers

Talk about photo-finish. I've been busy trying to get ready for a vacation and then going on vacation that it took me til deadline to actually make the challenge this month.

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

We were also given a choice to make cake doughnuts or yeast doughnuts. I decided to go with Alton Brown's yeast doughnut - one which my son is more familiar with. He would be the one consuming the sinful goodies.

White Bread

We always have bread and usually buy the double loaf sold at Costco. But we ran out and we didn't want to buy another pair of loaves because we are going on vacation real soon. Anyway, I decided it's time I try to bake a loaf of bread.

I found a great recipe from Allrecipes.com with almost 2,000 5-star reviews - can't go wrong with that, right? I started at around 8:30pm, it was ready by 11pm. And yes, my son smelled the freshly baked bread and wanted to eat that late. I, of course, restrained myself.

Flower Pot Cake

Here's a really nice cake for Mother's Day or for a garden-theme party or for whatever occasion a flower pot cake would be a perfect fit. You can change the kind of fondant flowers you can put on the flower pot depending on the flower cutters you have or if you can pipe your flowers directly on the cake, even better. But since I've confessed that I'm not really good with piping anything, I'd stick with fondant flowers. In this case, daisies. I just made a few flowers in advance. I think about 12 or 15. Then on the day of serving the cake, I just placed them on top of the cake.

I made this cake for my mother-in-law's birthday. To create the pot shape,  I just baked my cake on a Pyrex 2-Cup measuring cup. I didn't think I'd be writing a blog when I made my first cakes. I wish I  took step-by-step photos. But I'll try to be descriptive as possible.

Here's how I did it.