Definitely on the christmas cookie list...

Yesterday I was at my sisters house and  I was in the baking mood, which I've been in for about the past week. So I decided with my sister's encouragement to bake some. So I went on to allrecipes.com, (my default for finding a recipe.) I searched and search until I decided to just take one of the recipes and make it my own, as usual. So this was my take on the Spice Cookies with Crystallized Ginger 

Orange (and next time cranberry) Spiced Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons dark corn syrup
• 3 tablespoons orange zest
• Juice from half an orange
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar for decoration (add some colored sugar to make them prettier)
• 1 cup dried cranberries (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 2 large cookie sheets.
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add egg, and corn syrup; mix until fluffy. Stir in the orange zest. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, and cloves; stir into the egg mixture. When dough starts to come together, add cranberries, then mix with your hands to form a smooth dough (dough will be very moist)
3. Form dough into 1 inch balls and roll in white sugar. Place balls on a cookie sheet 2 inches apart, and press down with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar. Bake in the preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes, cookies should be golden brown. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before Moving to a rack to cool completely.

I completely forgot to add baking soda, but they still came out okay. They were a little to dry, but if you like a crunchy cookie I guess that's good. When we made these yesterday we decided that a few things need to change especially to help with the moister so I marked all the changes that we plan on making next time with gray font. I also think that substituting brown sugar for the white sugar will help with the moister and give it a deeper flavor. These will be a huge hit at Christmas time.

Cupcake Goodness...

So I've never been much for baking sweets from scratch, but I've decided to try my hand at it. Mostly because I've had a really bad sweet tooth.

So I did a little research on cupcake recipes and just kinda threw my own recipe together with whatever stuff I had in the pantry.

Slightly Tropical Virgin Piña Colada Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup Butter, softened
• 1 cup Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 Egg Yolk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 2 3/4 cups Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1/4  teaspoon Salt
• 3/4 cup Sour Cream
• 1/2 cup Cream of Coconut
• 1/2 cup Pineapple Juice

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350℉. Line cupcake pan with paper or foil liners.
2. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add vanilla
3. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
4. In another separate bowl whisk together sour cream, cream of coconut, and pineapple juice.
5. On low speed, add dry ingredients a half cup at a time to creamed butter, alternating with a half cup of sour cream mixture. Blend on high speed for 2 minutes.
6. Fill cups 2/3 full. Bake for 22 to 26 minutes. Cool completely before icing.

For Next Time:

Next time I make these I will probably get some coconut flakes and sub crushed pineapples for the pineapple juice.  And they weren't as sweet as I would like so I'll probably add more sugar. Plus maybe add some coconut extract, cause they "tropical flavor" I was going for isn't there at all. The moistness wasn't a problem, they are very moist. But they are a little dense for my likely so I will do some research to find out what to do to help with the denseness for next time. 
As for the icing, I couldn't give you the recipe if I wanted to cause I just threw some stuff together and added things here and there to get the flavor I wanted. But next time I make these I want to come up with some sort of pineapple frosting. When I do I'll get the recipe down and post it.