dessert

Back to school, back to reality….

~ stephzuniga ~ Leave a comment

Summer holidays are officially over- for some at least!  Last week, The Child started Year 4.  Year 4 seems like a big deal- I mean it didn’t at first but now it suddenly does.  It feels like the last year of being a kid, and the first step towards becoming a tween.  He’s no longer the smallest kid in his school– the kids starting Kindy seem tiny, and we’re navigating the complexity of loosening the apron strings and taking on more responsibility and independence.   Being home alone, having a phone of some sort, possibly getting to school or home from school by himself, I can already see that this year is going to be a transition.  

Of course this year is already a transition for me- to what, I’m not sure yet but that’s part of what I need to figure out… when I’m not baking of course!  And I’m still baking.  As much as we are one month into a new year,  I’m still doing the same thing.  

Last week, I baked Lamington Cookies and Red Velvet Cookies with White Chocolate Chips. The Lamington ones were my favourite out of the two.

This week, I’m bringing back an old favourite, Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies, and trying something new, Dark and Stormy Sugar Cookies. The Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies are a perennial favorite- so much so that I’m even closer to buying Vaughan Vreeland’s Cookies Cookbook.  The Dark and Stormy Sugar Cookies were ok.  Very gingerbread cookie vibes, less on the rum and lime vibe that I was hoping for.   I might try a different recipe next time– although I did enjoy rolling them and cutting them out– a normally avoid cutout cookies but these were ok!  

Happy Father’s Day!

~ stephzuniga ~ Leave a comment

Happy Aussie Father’s Day to all the Dads out there.  It’s been an action packed Father’s Day but also quite a normal Sunday.  It’s funny, the longer you spend as a parent, the less significant Mother’s Day and Father’s Day become.  It was still gorgeous to see how excited Thomas was to give his Dad the gifts he had picked out at the Father’s Day stall at school… and to hear why he picked them.  It’s amazing to watch him become a fully formed person.  I couldn’t be prouder of the person he’s becoming.  

We only have so many Father’s Days when he’s an actual kid.  He’s nearly 9- closer to being a moody teenager that we have to convince to eat with us  than the cranky toddler in a high chair that we’re trying to distract long enough for us to enjoy a meal in public.  We saw both ends of the spectrum at lunch today– and it was a reminder to me to enjoy every stage and age.

Not just as a Mom but as a person.  Nothing lasts forever.  It’s nearly been a year since I was made redundant and who knows what the next year will bring.  

For now, I’m enjoying the cookie phase.  Even on busy Sundays when it seems like there is so much to do, I love this phase of my life.  It feels good to do something for other people not because I have to, but because I want to.  It feels good to be appreciated. It feels good to spark a moment of joy for someone else.  And it feels good to do something so totally frivolous as baking cookies.  The world is full of so much awfulness, that doing something to brighten other people’s day feels nice.  I’m not sure if I’ll do this forever but for now, it’s nice.  

This week, I baked a request and an anti-request (is that even a thing?).  Dylan, my gym’s manager, requested Dark Dark Chocolate Cookies with sea salt.  And Stella, from pole, requested Peanut Butter Cookies- because she’s training for a pole comp and hates peanut butter cookies and doesn’t want to be tempted to eat them!  

Both cookies have come from my 100 Cookies Cookbook.  I tweaked her Triple Chocolate Pan Banging Chocolate Cookies by adding sea salt flakes.  I also made the Peanut Butter Cookies.  I’m not a huge fan of peanut butter cookies myself but these are ok.  I don’t mind them but they’re not my favorite.  Hopefully they’re peanut buttery enough to turn Stella off and hopefully Dylan likes the dark dark chocolate.  

Back into it!

~ stephzuniga ~ Leave a comment

I can’t believe it’s February already- January flew by in a flurry of fun- and a lot of tennis! The United Cup in Sydney, AO in Melbourne, and the quickest trip to the US ever (that also included two tennis lessons). It was the best way to cap off my months of Funemployment. And unbelievably- and quite sadly, I go back to work TOMORROW!

It’s been over 4 months of fun, and it ends tomorrow. Not only am I back at work, but I’m back into an actual office 2-3 days a week for the first time in 5 years. Needless to say, I am NOT ok.

I’ve learned so much over these past few months and above all, I’ve developed a LOVE of baking cookies. No matter how busy the work-life juggle gets, I hope I will continue to bake now that I’m back at work. We’ll see but I’m hopeful!

Last week, I baked two versions of Christina Tosi’s Chipless Chocolate Chip Cookies- Chipless and Chipful. She calls them her Chipless Wonders and they were excellent both with Chips (Chipful) and without (Chipless).

This week, I’m baking Christina Tosi’s Ritz Cracker Cookies and a version of Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies from Trejo’s Tacos Cookbook.

And yes, I am obsessed with Christina Tosi and her All About Cookies Cookbook after receiving it as a gift for Christmas. Full disclosure: It was a gift to me, from me. Her cookies and recipes are amazing. She is a next level genius, I’m only sad that some/many of her quirky ingredients are based on US ingredients but I LOVE everything I’ve made from her so far. These cookies are no exception. On paper, they’re bonkers, but so so so delicious when you taste them!

I also love Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies. I made some with marshmallows ages ago that The Runner loves. He was quite disappointed that these are not those, but they’re still pretty good!

So that’s it for this week- wish me luck for my first day!!

Dirty Chai and Macarons.

~ stephzuniga ~ Leave a comment

Happy December!

I can’t believe it’s nearly the end of the year. Christmas carols are playing, the tree is decorated, the turkey and ham are ordered and I’ve been reading Christmas Cookie recipes.

My experience with Christmas cookies has been mixed at best. There was one time when I baked them as a child- but forgot the sugar in the sugar cookie recipe, and wound up with cut out Christmas trees and stars that tasted like cardboard. As an adult, I find that cut out cookies are a lot of effort for very little reward. Sugar cookies aren’t amazing. Sugar cookies that a toddler or 5 year old has decorated are– worse. So when I think about baking cookies this Christmas, I can’t say that Sugar cookies are high on my agenda.

What is on the menu? Spicy cookies. Flavourful cookies. Cookies that make your mouth happy. Cookies like these Dirty Chai Earthquake Cookies. They have coffee and all the spices and flavours of a dirty chai latte- but rolled in two types of sugar and baked in the oven. AND they’re pretty good. What makes them Christmassy- the spices. They taste like a chai tea- and they have that gingery, cinnamony, clovey goodness that feels like Christmas.

I also made Soft Chocolate Chip cookies– just in case the Dirty Chai vibes were divisive. Chocolate chip cookies are always a crowd pleaser and these are are more soft and pillowy than crunchy. They weren’t quite what I was after… I was hoping they’d be closer to the OG Keebler Elf Soft Batch cookies that I used to eat bags of as a kid. I used to bring them back to Australia, and then suddenly they were gone. Discontinued in a cruel twist of fate. Their familiar and comforting red bag no longer on the supermarket shelves in the US, or anywhere on the internet. And the internet wasn’t happy. I wasn’t the only one that missed Soft Batch cookies. Articles were written. Blogs were posted. Apparently, Keebler has brought them back in a yellow package- but I’m sceptical. I will try this recipe for Mock Batch Cookies in the next few weeks just to see how close it is to my memories!

I also had the absolute pleasure of having my friend, Feliken, over today to make macarons. Ok, full disclosure. She made them and I watched. Macarons are not for the faint hearted. They’re not for the type of baker that forgets to put sugar in sugar cookies. In short, kids- do not try macarons at home. Or do, but it’s hard work. Feliken made it look super easy and they turned out really well. But they are a lot of work, a lot of steps, and they’re pretty fickle little things.

In short, I was in awe of her. The patience, the consistency, the level of detail, so many steps.

Ah-mazing. And they tasted soooooo good too. Am I inspired to try them on my own??? No. I’m a bigger fan of cookies that are simple and hard to get wrong. I mean any recipe with more than 4 steps, or more than 4 different action verbs and I’m lost. Dump everything in a bowl. Yes. Separate eggs, mix, add, whip, pipe, pop, wait, bake, cool, scrape, pipe, smush. I’m lost. Those poor little macarons wouldn’t stand a chance with me. But Feliken is a master at them! And it was great to see a master at work!

Just normal Chocolate Chip.

~ stephzuniga ~ Leave a comment

Last week I made Chocolate Chip Cookies. You know the ones. The boring, old favorites that have the recipe on the back of the bag of chocolate chips. Tollhouse chocolate chips if you grew up in the US, no idea what recipe is on the back of the Australian chocolate chip packages because I didn’t make those.

I made Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies (minus the nuts of course!) and they were lovely. Easy to make, and just like Mom used to make. Well, not my mother per se, but you know what I mean…

This week’s are called Cowboy Cookies. I wanted to make Halloween Cookies but 1, it’s next week, and 2, I don’t have Halloween Cookie Cutters– and even if I do happy to buy them, I’m not sure I’m going to spend the time actually decorate the cookies to make them look like pumpkins or ghosts or witches. Even though I techincally have the time, I’m not sure that I actually HAVE THE TIME to decorate cookies.

So, instead of Halloween, I’m going to focus on something FAR scarrier than Halloween for the next three weeks- the US Election.

Namely, the First Lady Bake Off or Presidential Cookie Poll. It took place from 1992-2016- after Hillary Clinton’s famous “I could have stayed home and baked cookies” comment and continued until Family Circle magazine went out of business in 2019.

So, I’m going to try a few recipes out–starting with Laura Bush’s Cowboy Cookies. There are a few others that might pop up in the next three weeks before Election Day so watch this space!

He Runs, I Cookie

~ stephzuniga ~ Leave a comment

So, I’m currently in the midst of figuring out my next career move. I absolutely loved my last job and now that it’s over, I have a lot of choices to make and a lot of paths to explore.

While I continue to figure it out, I’m baking.

This week’s cookies are Red Velvet Chocolate Crackle Cookies by Donna Hay. I LOVE Donna Hay. I had nearly every issues of her magazine and I LOVE her cookbooks. These cookies are yum! I brought them to a BBQ on Sunday, and they were a hit. So, I baked another batch today. As I mentioned last week, I’m building up a bit of a cookie fan club. One batch isn’t enough to last the week, and since I’m currently funemployed, I have time to bake cookies twice a week.

I also baked the world famous Neiman Marcus Cookies. If you haven’t heard of these cookies, there’s a whole urban myth/legend about a woman who paid $250 for the recipe because she liked the cookies so much.

I mean they were good- but not sure I could charge $250 for them.

Some people have told me I could into the baking business- I mean, it’s not going to happen but it’s a fun idea. I’d have to bake a LOT of cookies to be self-sustaining, so I don’t see it in the future– but I do kind of like the idea of calling them, “He Runs, I Cookie…”

Until next week!