What the guys...

Ok, these are not baked or knit:

But they are ADORABLE! That's right. We're taking a time out for some cuteness. For some reason, even though these guys claim VEHEMENTLY that they do not care much for each other, the always seem to be doing the same thing at the same time. And despite what they say about their desire to avoid each other, I have documented proof of them touching.

Boy those guys look grumpy. And beefy.

How about the view from where I sit?

Well, I had one beefer on my lap tonight:
And the other nearby in the office bed.


















Then some jealousy happened.There was a short tussle, some furry fists were thrown, but everyone ended up alright.
Now it is time for everyone to go to bed. I hope I get room to sleep on the bed tonight and don't wake up to any kitty butts in my face.

Bocca Di Nonna - Back to Blogging

Oh boy have I been lax again! I took a week or so off from baking and it turned into a month! As it turns out after my small baking hiatus I got sick with some kind of flu-like wonder and it turned right into bronchitis which put me out of commission for a while. Then once I started baking again I seemed to be too busy catching up on stuff I neglected while I was sick that I didn't have any time to blog it. Well I am back. Sadly I only have one offering right now, unlike my sister's epic posts that tend to have 5-10 delicious treats at a go, and frankly it was quite disappointing.

I made a batch of cookies called Bocca Di Nonna. From the recipe the cookies appeared to be similar to florentine lace cookies with and earl grey chocolate ganache sandwiched in the middle. Although I made them from a recipe book you can also find the exact recipe posted online HERE (along with my less than stunning review of it). The recipe seemed simple enough. Like one of my sister's recipes for walnut cupcakes it uses a large amount of ground nuts, in this case almonds, for the bulk of the cookie. There is also a HUGE amount of butter. Herein lies my problem with these cookies. The cookies spread out a lot more than they were supposed to even though I used cold butter to begin with and chilled the dough after processing. I also made sure to allow the pans to cool between batches. There was nothing that could be done, they just contain too much butter. After removing each batch of cookies from the parchment paper they were baked on I could see rivulets of buttery grease that had been left behind. The cookies were also exceptionally brittle. After preparing and cooling the earl grey ganache (which was actually quite interesting and tasty) I endeavored to spread it on half the cookies so I could top them with the other half but the edges were so extremely fragile that I probably ended up with a few whole cookies worth of crumbs by the time I was finished. At this point I still had a feeble amount of hope that they might end up ok because they actually looked rather nice. This all being despite the fact that the ganache was oozing through some of the thinner parts of the cookies and that my hands were getting covered in grease from handling the buttery abominations. Well, I decided first to layer the cookies in paper towels. Maybe after absorbing some of the grease they would be salvageable. Then I decided to put the paper towel layered cookies in the fridge; maybe hardening up the grease would at least make them more palatable. Well nothing made me satisfied with these cookies. The flavor components are not substantial enough to hold up to the overwhelming flavor of greasiness. The only way Favorite and I have been able to dispose of them down our gullets is to break up the cookies and smother them with vanilla ice cream and cowboy sauces (chocolate and brown sugar dessert sauces made with beer). I may try these again someday, with a good amount of the butter removed from the recipe, but more likely than not, if I get the urge to make these again, I will just make florentines and add the earl grey ganache to those instead.

In defense of my lack of baking, you should know that I also made some allergy free brownie bites right before I got sick that were pretty darn tasty, but I have no pictures of them. I used the recipe posted HERE. Despite the lack of flour and eggs and dairy these little brownie nibbles were very chocolaty and satisfying. I'm sure they would be good with a dairy free ice cream if you wanted to go vegan all the way, but I know for a fact they were splendid with the good old cow ice cream that I ate them with.

So, for lack of stunning dessert pictures I will now pummel you with some adorableness. Prepare:


Peanut (the big headed guy) seems like he knows when I am taking pictures and endeavors to be supremely adorable. His charisma easily translates to pictures.








Marmalade (the mountain lion looking guy) doesn't appreciate the camera as much as he knows he ends up looking ferocious and fearsome. While I don't doubt his ability to take down a gazelle given the chance, this guy is the biggest mooshy love bug you will find.





Well that's it for this post. It is already the end of the weekend, but perhaps I could whip up something tasty as an offering to the gods of baking so that they may forget about the greasy cookies I made. I must atone for this baking catastrophe.

Christmas Cookies and Kitties

So it's the Sunday before Christmas and Favorite and I are preparing to head over to my parents' house tomorrow so we are wrapping up what Christmassing we can. I had previously found some really cute snowman jars and decided I would fill them with cookie mix and give them as gifts. I also decided to crochet an animal friend as a gift. Here are the results --------------------------->

I got the cookie recipe from razzledazzlecookies.com. It's called Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix in a Jar. I didn't quite follow the layering instructions because I decided I wanted the snowmen to be mostly white so I separated the cocoa out and stuffed it in their hats and hid the nuts and chocolate chips inside the flour (the base is brown sugar).

Now I couldn't just give these as gifts not knowing how the recipe would turn out, so I HAD to bake a batch for myself and Favorite to make sure they were worthy cookies. I made sure to follow the directions of mixing the mix first and then adding the butter, egg and vanilla because I wanted to see how it would come out without creaming the sugar and butter first. I ended up having to mix it with my hands a little to make it come together ( it's tricky cutting in butter when chips and nuts are getting in your way!) but the cookies turned out scrumptious! They were nutty and chewy with just a little crispness to the outside. The chocolate of the cookie was tasty without being overwhelming (I could even eat them WITHOUT milk) while the melty chocolate chips satisfies any chocolate craving. By the way I used GOOD chocolate chips. Big dark chocolate ones.

So I was satisfied with the cookies making good gifts. I made sure to print a cute little instruction tag for the instructions and crocheted up some tiny little snowman scarves to attach the instructions to the jars.

While I was taking pictures to post here I got a little sad. I've crocheted a little kitty like this one before and I was wondering if my old kitty would miss my new kitty when he was gone. As such I did a little photo shoot with my two sleepy little guys.


































Man, those little kitties are just too cute.

Merry Christmas everyone!