Baking FAIL! Flourless Chocolate cookies!

I love to bake... I love to eat baked goods... I love to try new recipes for baked goods.

However sometimes these new recipes can go horribly horribly wrong... 

I figured that since I try so many recipes and of course there are going to be a few that wont work out eventually I should share with you the epic baking fails that I have as well as the great successes. 

My sister asked me to make these cookies for her as she loves Flour-less Chocolate Cake... and I had already pinned them on Pintrest so I thought hey why not.... 

Here is the recipe....

Flour-less Chewy Chocolate-Walnut Cookies

2 3/4 cups walnut halves

3 cups confectioners’ sugar

1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 large egg whites, at room temperature

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350.

Spread the walnut halves on a large-rimmed baking sheet and toast in the oven for about 9 minutes, until they are golden and fragrant.  Allow them to cool, then chop them coarsely.

Position two racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and lower temperature to 320.


Line two large-rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.


In a large bowl, whisk (or combine in an electric mixer on low speed) the confectioners’ sugar with the cocoa powder and salt followed by the chopped walnuts. While whisking (or once you change the speed to medium), add the egg whites and vanilla extract and beat just until the batter is moistened (do not overbeat or it will stiffen).


Spoon the batter onto the baking sheets in 12 evenly spaced mounds, and bake for 14 to 16 minutes, until the tops are glossy and lightly cracked; shift the pans from front to back and top to bottom halfway through to ensure even baking. Slide the parchment paper (with the cookies) onto 2 wire racks. Let cookies cool completely, and store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Read more: http://www.remodelaholic.com/2011/08/flourless-chewy-chocolate-cookies-and.html#ixzz1XffNpncY

So on Sunday I got it all ready and made these cookies... 

and as you may have guessed they were a huge fail! they never baked the way they should and they stuck to the pans like crazy, when I say stuck I mean the only part that came off was the edges and they came off in small slivers. They tasted great, at least the edges did... and I'm sure the only reason they didn't work was because I messed the recipe somehow. However I got so mad that the works of it went in the trash shortly after... 

no pictures, no evidence, nothing left! 

I get really mad when something I make doesn't work out... (like throw things across the room mad) and it likely gets thrown out, taken apart or just left as is and is never touched again... 

Oh well it's bound to happen!

How do you react when things go wrong? Do you lose it like me or do you keep your cool and find a way to make it work? I'd love to hear some coping strategies if you have them... Leave me a comment and maybe next time I have a fail I can try them out....

Make it Monday! S'mores Cookies!

Are you missing summer? 

I'm not... not yet anyway (I'm a fan of the fall!)

But one thing that I did miss from this summer is one of the greatest things about summer.... I love a good camp fire. 

Needless to say between trips to the hospital, babies and bed rest I didn't make it to any this year. So I have been longing for some S'mores!

I have been trying to find a way to make a S'mores chocolate chip cookie for a week or so (by trying I mean I've been thinking about it) and then I thought...

"Hey I bet that someone else has thought of this too!"

And of course they have!

My Google search returned 552,000 results for S'mores cookies! (can you say YUM) SO I had a look around and chose this one! 

I found it on Make and Bake but they got it from Cookie Madness

S'mores Cookies
recipe from Cookie Madness

3/4 cup softened butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups flour
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used mini chips)
1 cup mini marshmallows (I used slightly more than a cup)
2 Hershey bars, chopped up

Preheat oven to 375ºF.

In a stand mixer, combine the butter and sugars until fluffy. Mix in egg and vanilla until combined. Add the flour, graham crackers, salt, and baking soda, and mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto cookie sheets (I didn't use parchment, and one tray of cookies stuck a bit to the sheet, but the other was fine, so you may want to use parchment just in case). Bake for 8 minutes, and remove from the oven. Push 3 to 4 marshmallows and a few pieces of Hershey bar into each cookies. Return to the oven and bake an additional 3-4 minutes until fully cooked. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

Makes 3 dozen cookies.

The pictures at Make and Bake are much better!

I didn't have any Hershey bars so I just made the recipe omitting them, and I used regular large sized marshmallows and cut them into quarters because I didn't have any small ones.  Boy oh boy were these yummy! I'd defiantly make them again and again and again and I just might have to as 1/2 of them are gone already!

Have you turned a family favorite bar or desert into a cookie? or do you just favor the original?

Photo Friday! A day with the Family!

As a part of my birthday gift I asked my sister to take some baby and family photos of us...

So I thought I would share my favorites with you!

Have you had any new family photos taken lately? If you have a family member or friend that has a good camera and an eye for portraits you can do it on the cheap!

Happy Friday!

Tell The Truth Thursday! I love my jammies....

I have a sick obsession with my pajamas I wear them a lot...and by a lot I mean I only get dressed if I am going out. Yep right now I'm wearing pajamas that have little cocktails all over them...

If I know that I am not leaving the house on a particular day I don't put on real clothes... not even sweat pants. I lounge in my jammies all day long, and if I do get dressed to go out or to have visitors as soon as I am home again or when the visitors leave I slip back into my comfy jammies. (you know because I don't believe in the pajamafication of our world... to me there is something a little wrong about wearing your jammies in public... but that is a whole other post.)

All of this wouldn't be so bad but you see I now have two kids.... When I was single or even when I had no kids it didn't matter what I wore around the house, I could have gone naked all the time (not that I did...) and who would care.  However now that I have two kids they look to me for their example... and Momma is making it OK to wear your jammies all day. I let my kids wear their jammies all day if we aren't going out, and that wouldn't be so bad every now and again right... but we only go out a few days a week... so about 4 days out of 7 we are in our jammies all day... 

Part of me says who cares it is clothes and it's still covering them up, they are warm, they are comfortable, they are happy (and that is what matters to me). But then that other part of me, you know the Momma part that feels guilty about almost everything... she knows that I am teaching them things that they will carry on through their lives, things that will shape them into the people they will be, and that part wonders if wearing your jammies all day is a good habit, is it productive, does it tell them that we are lazy, or that we don't work hard enough?

So my confession today is that we are all (yup the four of us) wearing our jammies all day and we do most days! 

Do you hang out in your jammies or do you get up and get dressed every single day no matter what you are doing?

Delaney's 3rd Birthday Strawberry Shortcake Style!

We recently celebrated this little girls Big 3rd Birthday Strawberry Shortcake Style!

We had a lot of fun but unfortunately I don't have many photos of it or of what we did for it... there were lots of pictures taken and in fact all of these are from my sister, my mom or Robyn's mom... I never take any photos at Delaney's parties, I am usually too busy and I really should try as I find no one really takes pictures of the things that I would, for example the decorations, the food, the activities.... you know everything that you would want to show off on your blog... (oh right barely anyone I know knows that I have a blog so why would they... oops)

So here is how it went... 

(Keep in mind that I am not posting all the photos taken as I don't want to post photos of family and friends without there knowledge)

Friend's of ours own a bouncy castle so we borrowed it for the afternoon and it was a big Big BIG hit! I recommend it for every kids party!

And of course we had presents! 

She was spoiled with lots of fun new Strawberry Shortcake and Princess toys, and games.

One of her favorite gifts was this one... She got a brand new Princess Tiana (from the princess and the frog) dress up outfit straight from Disney! The ensemble came with the dress, tiara, gloves and purse... She loves it! My best friend and her new hubby had just visited Disney as part of their honeymoon and picked this up from the bibbidi bobbidi boutique as her gift from all of our friends!

And how can you have a Strawberry Shortcake party with out a Strawberry Shortcake Cake! 

I made her cake (as I always do) using my pound cake recipe found here and my butter cream icing recipe found here! To make it Strawberry Shortcake theme I just iced the cake in green 'grass' made a brown sugar 'path' and placed a Strawberry Shortcake doll (that came in a happy meal) on the path... So easy which I needed while taking care of a 3 year old and a new born!

Personally while I love the look of fondant I don't enjoy it on a child birthday cake... to me its just too much and they don't eat it anyway...

As you can see she loved it! 

Unfortunately I would have liked to have a more elaborate DIY party but due to my "taking it easy" before Max made his arrival, and the fact that I had a C-section just 2 weeks before her party I had to cut down on some of the things I planned.

For decorations we kept is simple with pink and green balloons, pink and white streamers and a generic Happy Birthday sign (all of which I picked up at the dollar store) as much as I wanted to make her birthday sign it just didn't happen this year... Robyn's mom picked up some Strawberry Shortcake plates and cups and such for the kids and for the grown ups I just picked up plain pink forks and knives and plates...

One semi creative thing I did do was to print out some of these coloring pages and use them as signs to indicate where the party was (again I don't have a picture) I printed them on pink paper and used green painters tape to put them up on the fence and windows... I also printed some of the coloring sheets and set up a coloring table for the kiddos...

If your hosting a Strawberry Shortcake party this is a great place to start... they have lots of activities and also party hats you can put together as well as invitations that you can print too!

Have you had a Strawberry Shortcake party recently? are you planning one soon? I'd love to hear all about them if you have!