breakfast in the form of cookies

So I've been feeling really stressed and blahhhh this week, so I have been really feeling the need to bake something. I decided to make shortbread, and jeez, that is like the easiest thing to make and one of the most delicious. Haha.
I could have left them plain and they would have been absolutely delicioussssss, BUT, i decided to be a little more fancy shmancy and made them into sandwiches.
I filled half of them with my mom's home made strawberry jam (which is the best jam EVER, just saying), and the other half with Nutella. (Both of which are reoccurring stars of my breakfast, usually appearing on my toast.)
I got the recipe for the cookies from Cupcake Rehab, which is actually one of my favorite baking blogs. Like I said before, they were so good even just plain, they had the perfect amount of salt and weren't too sweet. Yummmmmm. Anyway, here's the recipe.

SHORTBREAD COOKIES:
2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
¼ cup powdered (confectioners or icing) sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract



1. In a separate bowl whisk the flour with the salt. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), cream the butter until smooth (about 1 minute). Add the sugar and beat until smooth (about 2 minutes). Beat in the vanilla extract. Gently stir in the flour mixture just until incorporated. Flatten the dough into a disk shape, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill the dough for at least an hour.
3. Preheat oven to 350° degrees F with the rack in the middle of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
4. On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick. Cut into rounds or whatever shapes you wish using lightly floured cookie cutter. Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheet and place in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. This will firm up the dough so the cookies will maintain their shape when baked. Bake for 8 – 10 minutes, or until cookies are lightly brown. Cool on rack. Shortbread with keep in an airtight container for about a week or frozen for several months. This recipe makes about 20 shortbread cookies.



Since I made mine fairly small, I was able to make about 50 cookies, and since I made sandwiches, I was able to make about 21 of those (some of them were too thin/brown/imperfect to pair up, so i left them as is and they are still delish).

Peace. Love. Shortbread.

XS Strawberry Jammies

YES!
I am back to the world of baking and it feels great! Haha.
As some of you might know, I was on the east coast for 6 weeks dancing my little butt off. And since I was living in a dorm, I was unable to bake the entire time.

It was really weird.
ANYWAY. I'm back in California and finally was able to bake again, so I decided to start off light with some mini cupcakes.
I have wanted to make cupcakes with strawberry buttercream for a while, so since Anna came over and liked the idea, by golly, that's what we did!
We just did a basic white cake for the cupcakes, which we found on Technicolor Kitchen. It was so yummy I could have just eaten a dozen of those little mini cupcakes alone. but I only had one. Haha.
The buttercream is the Sprinkles strawberry buttercream recipe. And oh my goodness, this frosting was everything I hoped the frosting would taste like. I guess a 45 minute wait for a cupcake at Sprinkles is worth it if this is what just one of their frostings tastes like. =]
Anyway, enough about me, here's the recipe:

MINI CUPCAKES:
1 cup milk room temperature
6 egg whites
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ¼ cups cake flour
1 ¾ cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened



1. Preheat oven to350ºF.
2. Line two mini cupcakes tins (each holding 24 cupcakes) with papers.
3. Combine milk, eggs whites and extracts in a small bowl with a fork. Set aside.
4. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in an electric mixer and mix at slow speed with a paddle attachment
5. Add butter. Continue beating at slow speed until mixture looks like wet sand.
6. Add all but ½ cup of milk mixture and beat at medium speed for 1 ½ minutes. Add remaining milk mixture and beat for an additional 30 seconds, scraping the sides of the bowl if necessary. Do not overmix.
7. Divide batter evenly between prepared pans and gently shake to smooth batter. Bake 10-15 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Let cupcakes cool in the tins for 15 minutes then transfer onto racks to cool completely before frosting.

SPRINKLES STRAWBERRY BUTTERCREAM:
1/2 cup whole frozen strawberries, thawed*
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, firm and slightly cold
Pinch of coarse salt
3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Place strawberries in the bowl of a small food processor; process until pureed. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and salt on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce mixer speed and slowly add confectioners' sugar; beat until well combined. Add vanilla and 3 tablespoons strawberry puree (save any remaining strawberry puree for another use); mix until just blended. Do not overmix or frosting will incorporate too much air. Frosting consistency should be dense and creamy, like ice cream.





*Since they are in season, we used fresh strawberries instead of frozen. We only needed about 5 strawberries, so we just snacked on the rest while frosting. It was wonderful.

Earlier in the day on our travels around town, Anna and I stopped into the AMAZING kitchen store, Someone's in the Kitchen. I swear to god, I want to buy everything in that store. But I'm kinda broke, so I cant. But I did find a frosting pump for frosting cupcakes, and it is a lot easier to use than the bags, so i bought it for a good $7. I'm happy. =]
We did some experimenting, and some of it wasn't very pretty, but in the end we figured out how to make perfect frosting swirls. It was great. So here are the results:


^^the fail plate


^^cupcake perfection!

Anyhow, I plan on doing a lot of baking during this last week of summer, so be on the edge of your seats waiting for my next post. (I know you will be ;])

Peace. Love. Minicupcakes.