Amy

Mrs. Smith’s Signature Deep Dish Pies & A Giveaway

December 4, 2012 by Amy 177 Comments

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Mrs. Smith’s for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I feel like I’ve been baking pie like crazy lately. Between the office potlucks and family get-togethers, it just seems like the butter will run out. Seriously y’all….I purchased 12 boxes of butter last month and I’m down to 5! Crazy, no?

As much as I love to bake, sometimes there’s a party where I just don’t have the time to make something for us to bring. There may be some people who will judge me for this, but hey, I’ve been known to purchase a frozen pie or two, and bake them up. I usually tend to grab for Mrs. Smith’s, because I’ve never had a bad pie from them. In fact, my husband insists that his all-time favorite pie is Mrs. Smith’s Cinnabon Apple Crumb Pie, so when Mrs. Smith’s (via SocialSpark) offered me the opportunity to try their new line of Mrs. Smith’s Signature Deep Dish pies, I just couldn’t say no.

In case you’re a stranger to Mrs. Smith’s products, here’s a little background on the company (from the company’s website):

When Amanda Smith baked her first pies in the kitchen of her Pottstown, Pennsylvania home, she used the finest ingredients and amazing attention to detail to create the finest pies available. Amanda Smith started by baking pies for family, friends and charity events, but when her son, Robert Smith, convinced her to sell her pies, a business was born. Today, the makers of MRS. SMITH’S® desserts continue the tradition started by Amanda Smith, delivering pies and cobblers with made-from-scratch goodness you can see and taste. MRS. SMITH’S® pies and cobblers … a timeless tradition. Their new Signature Deep Dish pies come in four flavors:

Signature Deep Dish Dutch Apple Pie with Caramel Sauce
Signature Deep Dish Cherry Pie with Butter Fudge Sauce
Signature Deep Dish Peach Pie with Cream Cheese Icing
Signature Deep Dish Pumpkin Pie with Cream Cheese Icing

The great thing about these pies is that it comes with a fun topping packet to help you create a unique, customized pie, and of course, with any Mrs. Smith’s pie, it couldn’t be simpler to bake. Simply take it out of the freezer, place it on a baking sheet (in case it leaks) and let it bake in the oven. Then, once the pie has cooled, add the topping.

I got to try the pumpkin pie, and it was VERY good! It was spiced well (some pumpkin pies don’t have enough spice, in my opinion), and the custard was super smooth! The pie dough was very flaky and not at all soggy, too. I especially loved being able to decorate our pie with the included icing packet, which gave it a fun, festive touch. If you’re under a time crunch this holiday season, this pumpkin pie would definitely do the trick! To find where these pies are sold, here’s a link to the retailers near you. Mrs. Smith’s is generously offering one reader of The Nifty Foodie a coupon for a free Signature Deep Dish pie, as well as a $50 gift card to Williams-Sonoma!!
…

Homemade Holiday Gifts: Part 3

December 2, 2012 by Amy 2 Comments

I think this is my favorite part of giving food for gifts: the packaging. There’s so many fun options out there, and I really enjoy choosing every aspect of how the food will be presented.

I like to package each recipe in their own bag, so my cellophane bag collection over the years has gotten a bit crazy. I decided this year is going to be a de-clutter year for sure, which is SO hard…so many cute designs out there! My favorite places to buy these printed cellophane bags are at the Dollar Tree, World Market and Michaels (Wilton brand).

After that, I just simply choose some sort of box or tin to put everything in. When it comes to tins, I really love to purchase them at Hobby Lobby, especially when they’re 50% off that week (since they can be a bit spendy), because they come in many different sizes and so many different varieties of prints. I prefer to purchase smaller boxes/tins for coworkers and large boxes/tins for neighbors/families to share. 🙂

The ones on the left are treat bags (box material in a bag shape) from Wal-Mart, which were VERY affordable…3 for $1! The ones on the right, believe it or not, were from TJMaxx.

I also went to World Market a while ago, and found these. I love the box material bags (obviously)…they look perfect for stacking cookies, and I think the parchment paper would work well to separate flavors or just act as a sort of food safe tissue paper in boxes/tins. 🙂

I’m also a big fan of wax paper with baker’s twine. I’ve used that in the past as well, and I think it works well (especially for stickier foods).

Another pointer…if you want to get a little bit ahead and purchase your packaging for next year, check out the post-Christmas clearance! Some places, like Target, go down to 90% off on decor.

So, to show what I’ve done in the past for gifts, here’s a couple of pictures of gifts from previous years…

Two years ago, I wrapped oreo truffles in foil wrappers (usually found in the candy-making aisle of a craft store), and wrapped cookies in clear cellophane bags. The marshmallows on the right were wrapped in wax paper.

Last year, I purchased these adorable boxes at Target (in the dollar bin area), and stuffed them with fudge, elf’s mix & decorated cookies. Below, I made a large tray for my husband’s office, which contained elf’s mix, eggnog cranberry bread, decorated cookies, fudge and candy cane biscotti (which I realize I never posted last year…oops). To cover it all, I just wrapped each gift in cellophane wrap (found at Dollar Tree).

In case you missed it, here’s the other posts in my mini-series:

Homemade Holiday Gifts: Part 1 (the prep)
Homemade Holiday Gifts: Part 2 (the recipes)

Thanks so much for following this mini-series, and I hope you consider making some food gifts this year. 🙂 Not only is it a great excuse to bake (and get rid of the food), family/friends will definitely enjoy the personal touch on homemade gifts!

Homemade Holiday Gifts: Part 2

November 29, 2012 by Amy 8 Comments

Do you have your mixer and bowl ready?

A fridge full of butter?

Are you snacking on chocolate chips?…..No? That’s just me?!! 😛

Since I make gifts every year, I’ve come to learn that you don’t have to use super fancy recipes to impress. Based on feedback, those sugar cookies I’d spend hours decorating, while pretty, weren’t a favorite. Hilariously, the easiest thing to make (like dipped pretzels) usually won out. So, I wanted to share with y’all some tasty, yet not too time-consuming favorites for gifting.

First, here’s the favorites for cookies. These are the recipes you can make in advance, freeze, & bake when you’re ready.

Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies — These are just wonderful classic sugar cookies. Beats anything you can buy in the store!

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies — Again, just a classic cookie, but for the holidays, I like to buy the chocolate chips with red/green white chocolate chips mixed in the bag. Makes these more festive. Hint: You can also omit the chocolate chips and substitute in Christmas colored M&Ms!

Peanut Butter Cookies — These aren’t very Christmas-y, but if you wanted, you could sprinkle the tops with Christmas colored sugars.

(I’ll also be posting another recipe for the chocolate cookies you saw in part one’s pictures next week, if you’re interested!)

Here’s some other past favorites that I’ve gifted:

Oreo Truffles — The condensed milk version of these doesn’t require refrigeration, and these are super easy to make/dip. Sprinkles hide imperfections, too!

Elf’s Mix — This was a FAVORITE last year. It’s a great salty/sweet combination, and so festive too! Super simple recipe too…gotta love how the easy ones are the favorites. 🙂

Mom’s Peanut Butter Fudge — The picture just doesn’t do this fudge justice. It’s insanely good. I cut them into tiny 1×1 inch squares. They are just so rich, but delish!

Peppermint Marshmallows — These are perfect to add to a basket with hot cocoa mix!

Eggnog Cranberry Bread — This is a favorite for the holidays. I can’t tell you how many compliments I’ve gotten from this bread! The streusel puts it over the top!

White Chocolate, Cranberry & Pistachio Biscotti — This recipe is such an easy biscotti to make. It actually was my very first post on this blog. I love the red/green/white ingredient combination and the flavors just work so well together!

Peppermint Bark Cheesecake Truffles — While these need to stay in the fridge (due to the cream cheese), I find that these truffles would be the perfect gift for neighbors. The mint taste isn’t too overpowering, and it’s just a cute twist on the classic peppermint bark.

I’d love to hear from y’all…what are your favorite recipes for gifting?

Stay tuned for a the last post in this series: food gift packaging.

Check out other posts from this mini-series:
Part 1: The Prep
Part 3: The Packaging (coming soon)

Our Garden Makeover

November 28, 2012 by Amy Leave a Comment

We’ve been living in the new house for a little over a year now. Our house is anything but a fixer upper, like our last one was, but there were some things I really wanted to spruce up around our little abode. Our front yard was one of these things.

While the old homeowners took fantastic care of their house, I found that the front yard was kind of boring, though…lots of iris and amaryllis bulbs. I tried to add a little color in, but a bunch of annuals can only do so much to a space. (pardon the finger in this one)

We needed to do something a little more drastic, so I asked my mom (horticulturist extraordinaire) to draw up a little design for our yard.

I honestly thought it would take a day of work, tops. However, little did I know how much work reshaping a landscape involved! In fact, H did most of the reshaping, because as hard as I tried, I just couldn’t dig grass out as efficiently as H. It took us almost a week to finish it all (hey, we have to work too, you know…), but we got it done.

After multiple trips to Home Depot and Lowes, as well as hours of digging/spreading/planting, here’s our new front yard!

Isn’t it just awesome? The picture really doesn’t do it justice, though. I love that the only things I’ll have to replant are the annuals along the border (vs. when I had them throughout), as well as the annuals around the trees. MUCH easier, in my opinion. I can’t wait to see how these shrubs/bushes look when they grow a little more, too! It was a bit of a splurge for all of these plants, but it’s sort of an investment, since most of these shrubs/bushes are gonna stick around for years to come. 🙂

Let’s just hope I remember to keep everything watered….I tend to forget than plants need it. 😛 I didn’t get my mom’s green thumb…at all.

Homemade Holiday Gifts: Part 1

November 27, 2012 by Amy 6 Comments

I absolutely love baking during the holiday season. I’m always looking for excuses to bake, and during the holidays, I tend to find a ton of excuses. 🙂

One of our biggest traditions around the holidays is what I like to call the annual bake-palooza, which is the weekend before Christmas. Basically, we live in the kitchen for the majority of the weekend and bake, bake, bake for friends, coworkers, neighbors…you name it! It doesn’t sound fun to most, but to me, it’s a blast! Over the years, I’ve learned which recipes are great for gifting, and which recipes, while impressive, are just too much work to make for 15-20 gifts.

This year, I’m doing something different. While I’m still baking up a storm, I figured I could lighten the load a little by spreading out the majority of the work—the cookies.

Since we’re making a ton of goodies (husband likes to help), I had to do the math to see how many batches of each recipe I’d need to make for gifts. Most cookie recipes make 24 cookies (check your recipes first), so after doing the math, I decided 11 batches of cookies was a good number (2 of those being cookie dough gifts, which is a whole ‘nother gift idea). Of course, I doubt we’ll need all of those cookies, but I wanted to make sure I had extra dough, just in case…you can never have too much cookie dough, right?

One of the first things I always do for a big bake-palooza, is to stalk the grocery ads. I refuse to buy butter that’s over $2/pound box. I live in a fairly low to middle cost of living area, and from experience, I know $2 is rock bottom for the price of butter. It’s probably different in, say, New York or Los Angeles, but the idea is to buy butter when it’s the cheapest. Oh, and buy a LOT of it. I bought 12 boxes. Did you know that you can freeze butter? Just in case you don’t use it all..

Butter isn’t the only thing I shop for…I usually go through 3 bags of flour and sugar, multiple bags of chocolate chips, as well as 2-3 cartons of eggs. All of these go on sale this time of the year, and I know I sound like a cheap person for saying BUY EVERYTHING CHEAP, but seriously, when you’re baking multiple gifts, it all adds up! (and hey, saving money on ingredients means more money to buy pretty packaging, right?)

Once you have your ingredients, now of course you can make your dough. Since I’m usually doubling (or tripling) some recipes, I do that math in advance. Write those numbers on a post-it or something and stick it next to your recipe OR retype out your recipe with the correct amounts. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve doubled a recipe, only to realize I forgot to double one thing…like sugar. Yup. Not good. Just do the math in advance. 🙂

Side note: Just keep in mind your mixer size when you’re doubling or tripling recipes. My standard 5 qt. mixer can usually handle a double batch of cookie dough, but tripling really pushes the limits on the capacity of my bowl. I was able to triple recipes just fine in the 7 qt. mixer I have, though.

Once your dough is mixed, use a medium sized cookie scoop (or large, if recipe calls for it), and scoop dough balls out. My freezer is a side by side, and a 9×13 cake pan fits just fine in there. So, I scooped them out into a cake pan, making sure to leave a tiny bit of space between dough balls, to make sure they don’t freeze together.

If you have more than one layer of cookie dough, just layer balls of dough between sheets of wax paper.

Once you have your cookie dough scooped out, place the pan into a freezer and allow the dough balls to freeze for 1-2 hours, until they are fairly set. Then, take them out of the pan and throw them into a freezer bag. Allow all of the excess air out of the bags, and seal until you’re ready to bake them.

To bake the cookies, all you need to do is place the balls on a cookie sheet, allowing a couple of inches in between for spreading, and bake at the temperature specified for the recipe for just 1-2 minutes longer than called for.

You can see that I burnt the cookie in the back, but that was because it was meant to be baked 25 degrees cooler than the others. Whoops! Glad I learned that lesson before the big baking weekend!

Stay tuned for the next posts in this mini-series: one about favorite recipes for gifting and another about packaging. 🙂

Thanksgiving Time

November 20, 2012 by Amy 1 Comment

In a couple of short days, most of us will be surrounded by family and/or friends to celebrate Thanksgiving. I’ll never forget the first time we hosted Thanksgiving three years ago. I thought that being a married gal automatically meant my husband and I could magically throw together the perfect Thanksgiving.

Ha.

My mother came to our house early to bring her dishes, and to make sure I was still breathing (she knows best, right?). She found me in my pajamas with a sink full of dishes, no more counter space for prep and well, I was two steps away from crying (Ok, I actually did cry…), drinking, calling a restaurant to tell them “YOU WIN”. I learned a lot about hosting a holiday meal that year, and I have my mom to thank for that. I was so stressed about how much more had to be done, that I couldn’t even tell my husband how he could help me. I was overwhelmed, but since most of the recipes I was working on were Mom’s recipes, it was easy for her to step in and help out. By the time guests arrived, the food was ready, my hair was brushed and there was counter space in our kitchen again.

Moms are awesome, aren’t they? (Actually, if it wasn’t for Mom AND my husband, I probably wouldn’t have hosted a meal again…)

I felt like last Christmas was our first big hosting success. I felt like my husband and I truly had everything under control. When my in-laws arrived and asked what was needed, I wasn’t flustered at all. In fact, we really didn’t need help…I was sort of proud of us. I immediately called my Mom as people were eating to tell her that I did it without crying. 🙂 It was a proud moment…for real.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who cried the first time they hosted a holiday meal?

Anyway, I wanted to share some of our family/friend’s favorite dishes with y’all. I may have made them at different times of the year, but they have all been hits, which I think would still be perfect for a Thanksgiving feast. If you are a last minute planner like me, feel free to squeeze one of these recipes in for the holiday!

Appetizers:

Crawfish Cheesecake
Mini Crawfish Pies
Cheese Fondue
Spicy Spinach Artichoke Dip

Side Dishes:

Spinach, Strawberry, Pecan and Feta Salad
Grilled Corn Grits
Mom’s Cornbread Dressing
Mom’s Sweet Potato Casserole

Desserts:

Pumpkin Cheesecake
Caramel Apple Pie
Pecan Pie Macarons
Turkey Cake Pops

What are your family/friend’s favorite dishes for Thanksgiving? Please share them!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

November 19, 2012 by Amy 3 Comments

I’m sitting here in disbelief that Thanksgiving is a few short days away. As much as I love this time of the year, I can tell it’s just gonna fly by all too quickly! For example, I’m currently knitting stockings for my husband, the pup and me, and I’ve been working on them since early October (which was just yesterday, right?). It just blows my mind that they’ll be on our mantel this weekend. I guess I should finish up my husband’s stocking ASAP, eh? 🙂

With this time of the year, I just can’t help but bake. I was asked to bake up some cupcakes (I’ll share the reason with y’all later…have to keep hush for now), and the first thing that popped in my head was pumpkin. I wanted to jazz them up a little bit, so I spiced up the standard cream cheese frosting and drizzled the cupcakes with my favorite caramel sauce. I made enough of these to also share with my coworkers, and a few of them asked for the recipe! Even my Mom is baking these up for Thanksgiving, which is a huge compliment since my Mom is pretty much my cooking/baking idol (along with my Memaw). 🙂

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
Source: cupcakes adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

pinch of ground cloves

1 cup packed light-brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 15 oz. can of pumpkin puree

For the frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

8 tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

3 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

pinch of ground cloves

For the caramel drizzle:

salted butter caramel sauce, cooled

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line your cupcake pans with cupcake liners and set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Whisk the ingredients together until well-combined and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the sugars, butter and eggs together until fully mixed. Add in the dry ingredients, and mix on low until the mixture is smooth. Scrape down the bowl. Add in the can of pumpkin puree, and mix until everything is well-combined.

Fill each cupcake liner about halfway full, and bake for about 20-25 minutes, rotating once after 10 minutes. You’ll know the cupcakes are done baking when a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely.

To make the frosting, whip the cream cheese and butter for a full 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract, as well as the cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, and mix until well-blended. Add in the confectioners’ sugar one cup at a time, mixing on low, until everything is mixed. Then, whip the frosting one last time on medium-high for about 30 seconds.

To decorate the cupcakes, pipe the frosting on the cooled cupcakes, and then drizzle with caramel sauce. Enjoy!

A bunch of randoms…

November 15, 2012 by Amy 1 Comment

If you wear make-up, you need to try this foundation. I got a sample the last time I went to Sephora, and oh man, this stuff is good. You don’t feel it on your skin at all throughout the day, and it blends so easily. Yup. I’m pretty sure that’s gonna be part of the 20% reward, which is about 3 lbs. away!

On a weight loss note, I’m so surprised by how much leaner I look. I’m not skinny, but I look at pictures of me, and I’m in disbelief at how much smaller I am. Left picture was from February; right from two days ago.

I’m challenging myself the entire month of November to wear make-up to work. I prefer my sleep in the morning, but I find when I wear make-up on the weekends, I have a little more pep in my step. So far, I’ve only missed one day (just completely slipped my mind), but I do like how polished I look with a little bit of foundation/powder/mascara/lipgloss.

I’m working on making Christmas stockings for H, the dog and I. I’ve been posting progress pictures on my Instagram profile, if you’re interested. Stocking #2 is almost done…hoping to finish that one today, actually!

Blue Bell has a holiday flavor out called Gingerbread House. I can’t buy a container of it…I just can’t, but oh man….I REALLY wanna!

I love me some Williams Sonoma, but y’all….this.is.FUNNY!

I realized this is one of the few weekends I have left that won’t be too busy before the holidays, so I’m hoping/planning to make all of the cookie dough needed for coworker/neighbor gifts this year. After doing the math, I’m going to need to make 11 batches of cookies. Guess I should stock up on butter at Sam’s, eh?

Side note: Thanksgiving is exactly a week away. Wasn’t it just July or something?

Caramel Apple Pie

November 13, 2012 by Amy 5 Comments

I find that I don’t make pie nearly enough. For some reason, I find it to be much more time-consuming than cupcakes or cookies, but in all seriousness, pie is very simple. Your food processor basically does all of the work to make the crust, and heck, sometimes I’ve even made pie crust in the stand mixer…still works great. The secret to an easier pie crust for me is frozen butter. I like to cut the butter in small cubes, then throw them in the freezer to make them extra cold. This is one of the few desserts where you want your butter as cold as possible, because as you work with the dough, it warms up and is just miserable to work with when it’s no longer cold (at least in my very beginner pie-making experience).

I have been having a killer craving for some apple pie, and since I had a batch of caramel sauce handy (Why do I do that to myself?), I figured there HAD to be a recipe out there for caramel apple pie. I got to googling and found this one. Since I already had the caramel sauce, I just used that in this recipe instead of the caramel recipe that Williams-Sonoma had. This pie came out so good, y’all. The filling just melts in your mouth, and their recipe for pie crust has such a wonderful, buttery flavor, as well as a bit of a flaky texture. Just SO good. If you want to bring something a little different to your Thanksgiving dinner, this is a tasty twist on the American classic.

Now, if this caramel apple pie isn’t your thing, you can definitely find other ideas this week. Come join Love the Pie with TidyMom sponsored by Whirlpool and enter to win a new Whirlpool Range! Be sure to check out TidyMom’s website for other great pie ideas and recipes! The party is going on all week!

Caramel Apple Pie
Source: adapted from Williams-Sonoma

Ingredients:

For the pie crust:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tbsp. + 2 tsp. sugar, divided

2 tsp. salt

2 sticks cold, unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

6 to 8 tbsp. ice water

1 egg + 1 tbsp. water, lightly beaten in a small bowl

For the filling:

4 lb. Granny Smith apples, peeled/cored & cut into 8 slices

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

3 tbsp. cornstarch

1 batch salted butter caramel sauce

Directions:

To make the pie crust, combine the flour, 2 tbsp. of the sugar and salt in a large food processor and pulse the mixture to combine. Add the cold cubes of butter and pulse the mixture until it resembles a coarse meal. Add 6 tbsp. of the ice water and pulse the mixture twice. Check the dough for consistency by squeezing it with your fingers. If the dough holds together well, the dough is fine. You don’t want the dough to be crumbly (too little water), but not sticky either (too much water). If you need to add water, add it 1 tsp. at a time and pulse twice after each addition. Once the dough is at the consistency you need, place the dough on a work surface and divide the mixture in half. Shape each half into a dish and wrap each with plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours (or up to 2 days).

To roll the dough, remove it from the refrigerator and let the dough stand for 5 minutes. Place 1 dough between 2 sheets of lightly floured wax paper & roll it out into a 12-inch round, to about 3/16″ thickness. Repeat for the other disk of dough. Take one of the doughs out from between the wax paper sheets and gently press it into a 9 inch deep-dish pie dish. Refrigerate both doughs for another 30 minutes.

To make the apple filling, place the apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg & lemon juice in a large dutch oven. Cover and cook the mixture, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes, until the apples are just tender (you can easily check by sticking a fork in an apple slice). Once the mixture is done, uncover the pot and allow the filling to cool to room temperature. Stir in the cornstarch.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Once the filling is cool, take out your pie crusts and allow those to sit for 5 minutes. In the meantime, stir the apple filling and 3/4 cup of the caramel sauce together (the rest of the caramel will be for serving). Pour the apple filling into your pie dish, and then place the top crust over the pie. Cut off any remaining dough hanging over the edge of the pie dish, and then press the top and bottom crusts together. Brush the top crust with the egg wash, and sprinkle the top crust with the remaining 2 tsp. of sugar.

Place the pie dish in a jelly roll/baking sheet. Bake the pie until the crust is golden brown, about 1 hour. Be sure to check the pie after 30 minutes, to make sure the crust isn’t too dark—whatever part of the crust on too dark, just simply cover it with foil. When the pie is done baking, allow the pie to cool on a wire rack for at least 2 1/2 hours before serving. Serve with leftover caramel sauce (warmed) for drizzling (it’s also equally great with ice cream). Enjoy!

Gingerbread Blossom Cookies

November 8, 2012 by Amy 3 Comments

Since Halloween is officially over, I usually just eat all of the candy leftover from trick or treaters like it’s no big deal. Heck, that’s why I’d get chocolate…always. However, with this diet thing going on, I felt like I could totally do the whole portion control thing. That lasted one night…when I caught myself eating 3 Reeses cups the next afternoon, I decided ALL of the candy had to go.

Even the pumpkin spice kisses in the freezer. 🙁

So, I decided to make blossom cookies with them, but I didn’t want to do plain sugar cookies. I wanted to do something a little different and more festive. I know it’s not the holiday season yet (to the majority, that is…I’m so ready to decorate for Christmas…judge away). However, gingerbread is fall spice-ish, so I figured it would probably work. Um…yeah…this totally worked. TOTALLY. These cookies are a soft, chewy gingerbread and with the pumpkin spice kisses in the middle?? Y’all…I can’t even. These cookies had to get out of our house! Thankfully, my coworkers didn’t mind polishing these off. 🙂

Now, I know these kisses are a Halloween candy, but you may luck out at your store. I saw them at my local Target a couple of days ago, and right now, the Halloween candy is SUPER cheap, so if you love these kisses, stock up! I really wish Hersheys would make this a year-round candy, but I guess it’s better for my thighs this way. 😛

Gingerbread Blossom Cookies
Source: cookie recipe from Taste of Home

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup molasses

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1/4 tsp. salt

Additional sugar for rolling

Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses, unwrapped

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of a mixer, mix the butter and sugar for about 2 minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add in the egg and molasses.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt. With the mixer on low, slowly add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and mix until everything is well-combined.

Using a small cookie scoop, scoop out cookies and roll the dough into granulated sugar. Place the dough balls 2 inches apart on a parchment or silicone mat lined cookie sheet. Bake the cookies for 8-11 minutes, until puffy and lightly browned along the edge.

Immediately after taking the cookies out, press a kiss candy into the center of each cookie. Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely. Since these kisses are a softer chocolate, you may want to place them in the refrigerator for about 10-20 minutes, to allow the kiss candy to set before serving.

Amy

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