Date Night: Cookie Bake Off [The Results]

So here are the results of our first date night of the new year (read the plan here)...

We started by taking all of the possible ingredients out of the cabinets, fridge, and pantry. I did this mostly because I knew Steve wasn't aware of all of the baking materials we had.

It made me realize that this date would be a good idea to do periodically in order to clean out our pantry.

I put on my apron and told Steve he had to choose one to wear also. He did, although a little grudgingly.

And then we took a picture to document the night. Please ignore my multiple chins.

The actual process was highly entertaining, included a little bit of smack talk, and some flirting, and took a lot longer than I thought. 

Steve's Cookies

Steve made Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich cookies. I'm not sure exactly what ingredients he included, but I do know he started by toasting/candying some rolled oats and mixed them into the batter. The cookies themselves are peanut butter with a sweet pb&j filling. He actually used one of my piping bags to fill the cookies. His cookies were a little crumbly, and I felt so badly for him when half fell of the cookie sheet and broke when he took them out of the oven. But he worked hard to piece them back together. I think the idea was brilliant, and the filling tasted AMAZING!

                                                     

                           

My Cookies

I had this brilliant idea for my Chocolate Caramel Cinnamon Cookies which didn't work quite as well as I wanted it to. I actually did some research ahead of time (Steve did not) and decided to make a butter and cream cheese based cookie thinking it would be fluffier. It was not. I layered mine with chocolate ganache, then a layer of cookie, then a layer of caramel (made by heating up sweetened condensed milk) topped by the last cookie. I also put a little bit of cinnamon sugar butter in with the caramel. I then pinched all of the layers together and sprinkled some cinnamon and brown sugar and salt on top. They tasted really good, but they weren't  quite what I wanted them to be.

   

                                 

Contest Results
First we had Steve's sister Lauren judge them based on taste, texture, appearance, and creativity. We tied with Steve losing a point for texture (she thought the sugar didn't blend well enough) and me losing a point for flavor (she didn't like the salt on top).

Then our friend Dan came over, and he judged them using the same criteria. At first, we tied also, but then I restated the name of Steve's cookies (Dan didn't realize that "jelly" was also in the title), so Dan tasted Steve's cookie again and gave him an extra point for creativity, making Steve the winner!

Success?
I think it was definitely a successful date night. It was just the right balance between competitive and fun, allowed us to be creative side by side, didn't cost anything, and helped us use up some extra ingredients lying around the house. It also appealed to Steve's desire to stay at home on his day off. I definitely want to do something like this again.

What's Next?
Next it's Steve's turn to plan a date closer to the end of this month. I have no idea what his plans are, but I'm really hoping he gets creative too!

Date Night: Cookie Bake Off [The Plan]

One of my goals for the year is for Steve and I as a couple to be more purposeful about date nights. None of this, "I'm bored; you want to go out to eat?" stuff. I want actual planned dates.

So in order to make this happen, I used technology. I use this website called Cozi. It's a personal planner website specifically designed for families. The two components I use the most (both online and via the free app on my Droid) are the shopping list and the planner. The cool thing about the planner is that you can set it up to send text message reminders about an upcoming event to everyone in the family. So, I went through our calendar, from now until June, and scheduled one to two dates a month. I rotated back and forth between a date that I have to plan and a date that Steve has to plan. I also set it up so that we get a text reminder a week before the date giving us plenty of time to plan.

And, because I initiated all of this, I thought it was only fair that I plan the first date. I made it an home date to show Steve that I am not doing this with the intent of causing us to spend more money.

The Date: Cookie Bake Off
Location: Our kitchen
Time: After work
Materials: Ingredients we have in the kitchen.
Other Guidelines:

• No recipes allowed, although you may research recipes for ideas ahead of time.
• No shopping ahead of time.
• Someone else (Steve's sister and maybe one of mine) will judge the results based on creativity, taste, texture, and appearance.

I'm actually SUPER excited about this and would go as far as to say that Steve is a bit excited too. He really enjoys making up recipes, and he LOVES cookies, so this is right up his alley.

I'll do my best to take some pictures tonight and post the results over the weekend. I'll also try to keep updating on these date night ideas and how they turn out!

Owl Cookies!

Saturday was my friend Traci's baby shower (yes, the same Traci as in this post). She is having a boy sometime in June, and she is decorating the nursery with owls, so the theme of the shower was owls. Around Valentine's Day, I watched an episode of The Martha Stewart Show highlighting the creation of some love bird owl cookies, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try out the recipe. So I used the cookie recipe found here. I followed the recipe, for the most part, but I ran out of sugar, so for the last 1/2 cup I used dark brown sugar instead of white sugar. I also added some cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger to give them a little more pizazz. I think the lemon juice combine with the spices really made a difference.

The directions for the cookies included a template for cutting out he owl shapes. Cutting them out by hand was a great deal more time consuming than I thought, but they turned out really cool.The dough was nice weight, so it wasn't difficult to transfer them to a cookie sheet. And the dough baked very nicely too, with no sticking. I was also surprised as to how many cookies it made, despite the face the cookies themselves were stinking huge.

So obviously, since Traci knew she was having a boy, I decided to go toward more male-typical colors. I was going to do a bright green, bright blue, and chocolate brown, but I ran out of yellow food coloring, so I ended up using a more muted blue green, but it still looked pretty cool. I used a chocolate royal icing recipe for the brown which I found here at Food.com (it tasted really good). Then, since royal icing was so much more simple than I realized, I decided not to use a recipe for the plain royal icing and to wing it instead. It worked out fine.

I put the icing in squeeze bottles and followed the directions on the website. I outlined the cookie and then filled it in, using a butter knife to spread out the filling. I also put in the stripes in the opposite color and used a knife to swirl it a bit.

Long story short (although not really I guess), they turned out really cool looking and really yummy. I had to play around with the decorations a bit. I tried using marshmallows for the eyes, but ended up using York Peppermint Patty Pieces with icing dots in the middle. I used cut up Dots gum drops for the beak. I decided not to do the feet because I thought they looked dumb.

Here's the finished product...