Ugh I've been having one of those weeks that makes it tough for me to get anything done, including my passion of creating in the kitchen, but let's take a detour for just a moment shall we? One good thing that happened to me this week was I got a new bed! Lol I know it seems like a mundane thing to be excited about, but with my health (and everyone else for that matter) a good night sleep makes a world of a difference. I went from having an old small , no make that tiny bed (not by my choice GRRRR), and now I have a over sized double bed with an extra mattress topper to make it that more comfortable! The funny part of this whole story is that as a child my mother always read and referred to me as "the princess and the pea", and now I have a bed that I may need to buy a step stool since its so much higher lol. You make think I'm over reacting but I'm 5'8" and when I sit on the side of the bed my feet don't even touch the ground lol, true story :)
Okay enough of my comfy new bed lets get to the tasty and fun stuff, as I mentioned in my last few posts I have been given the honor to create signature cookies for my sisters wedding. Now Nathan will confirm I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my baking, and you could imagine the pressure I'm putting on myself for this. I'm not sure if I explained what my vision is for the cookies with all of y'all so I'll do so now ;) My sister wanted them done with their initials, so I took it even further and this is my game plan by making the cookies their favorite types;
The letter A (for Asha my sister) - chocolate chip cookies
The letter J (for Josè my brother in-law) - peanut butter cookies
The letter M (for Miguel my cutie nephew) - banana cookies
The letter Z (for their last name) - I'm doing a combination of all three to signify them coming together in marriage.
I know I'm going a little crazy but it's my little sisters wedding so I wanted to do something nice for them :) The one cookie I was slightly worried about was Miguel's cookie, as I have never had or seen a banana cookie, but divine intervention worked its magic and on my news feed on Facebook (I think :/) was a recipe for cookies known as banana bites ! Now I know one of my nephews favorite snacks are bear paws which are basically soft banana cookie breads, so I figured I would make some tweaks to the recipe and hopefully it would be kid and bride approved :) I'll share with you my take on the recipe, and show you how difficult it was to make the dough cooperate in to the letter "M".
Banana Bites
Ingredients
1C sugar
1/2C butter
2 eggs
1 1/2C bananas, mashed (I used 3)
1Tsp vanilla
2C all-purpose flour
1Tsp baking soda
1/4Tsp salt
1 1/2Tsp cinnamon
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350F. Coat cookie sheets with cooking spray (I used coconut oil). In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2) Add eggs and beat thoroughly. Beat in mashed bananas and vanilla until well combined.
3) Gradually blend in flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Mixing until just combined.
4) Drop mixture by teaspoonfuls on to baking sheet. I used my "m" cookie cutter and spooned the batter into it.
5) Bake for 10-15 minutes (mine were closer to 10), or until lightly golden. Remove to wire racks to cool.
As you can see my "m"'s actually look like crazy blobs of cookie, and of course I was panicking, so I threw the remainder of the batter in the fridge to see if that would help them hold more. It didn't :( so I decided to sleep on it and think about how I was going to remedy the problem. The next day I decided to go over them blobs with the cookie cutter again and it cleaned them up perfectly :D
aren't they perdy lol
All that was left to do was the taste test. Tereza my roommate tried them the night I made them and she said they were good and different. Normally when someone hears different you think it's not that good, but I knew exactly what she was talking about. If banana bread and cookies had a baby this would be it lol! Next I texted my sister to come and try them to see if she liked the taste and look, and of course she brought the real judge along too Miguel :) She liked the look and she even liked the taste (success!), and when we went to see if Miguel liked them too we saw that he had gobbled the cookie up. I think it's safe to say that this will be the recipe to represent my cutie nephew, so that's one down only three more to go!
I am very happy that this turned out exactly like I had envisioned it :) now to create the others and make sure they are just as spectacular as these were. So I am in full on research and creating mode, how much am I into this you ask? So much that I am in full on study mode with my chic geek glasses lol. Until next time.................
hehe cutest nerd around ;)
Stay sweet,
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