Chocolate Espresso Snowcap Cookies

Over the holidays, I go overboard with baking.  It's out of control. I always try out a couple of recipes each year in hopes of finding new, favorite cookies. This year, I tried a recipe from Martha Stewart. I absolutely loved how these cookies turned out and they were a huge hit at the holiday party.

Here are the cookies all bundled up...

Get the recipe after the jump.

Happy Birthday

So, today is my bf's birthday. It is a long held tradition in my family to go all out on birthdays. For this reason, to commence the day of festivities, I woke up at the crack of dawn to make the boy from-scratch cinnamon rolls. I took great care to exit the bedroom without making a noise and made my way into the kitchen. 

I combined together flour, sugar, egg, butter and yeast. I then covered the dough with a bowl for five minutes. I rolled out the dough and covered it with a layer of butter and then sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on top of the butter. Finally, starting with the 10" side, I rolled the dough tightly. 

 Next, I cut the dough into 12 equal pieces and placed them on a greased pan. I covered the rolls with a towel and placed them on top of my oven to allow them to rise. It took about one hour for the dough to rise fully.

 I then placed the rolls in the oven at 375 and cooked them for approximately 25 minutes.

I went out and cut a couple of roses from our garden and placed them in a mason jar. Somehow, some way, I managed to finish the rolls at exactly the time that he needed to wake up for work....phew! Here's what he woke up to.

Check out the recipe after the jump

The Most Popular Cookie

Do you ever have certain recipes that are just guaranteed a home run? No matter who you make it for, you're always guaranteed to be the hero of the party. Well, that's how it goes with these pumpkin iced cookies. I joke about how these cookies make me friends, but seriously, they are THAT good.

How insane do these look?

I wish I could take credit for creating this heavenly recipe, but I can't. Get this recipe by Gina from All Recipes after the jump!

Black and White

Black and white cookies always make me nostalgic for New York. For some reason, they have always been incredibly intimidating to me. However, recently my brother had a birthday party with a black and white theme and these cookies seemed oh so appropriate. I learned so much during my first go, specifically that for proper black and white cookies you're supposed to put the icing on the bottom of the cookie. Whoops! Oh well, I'll save that detail for next time.

Get this recipe by Mary Jane from All Recipes after the jump!

Fall Flavors

Whenever the weather cools, I immediately find myself craving soups. It's probably a little out of control, but I think I would be content to have soup every night during the winter months. You can imagine my excitement when while shopping at Trader Joes, I came across their Bean and Barley Mix. I grabbed the bag and then stopped in my tracks when I saw that the mix contains the dreaded black eyed peas, which still conjure up bad memories from childhood.

I remember coming home after school and seeing the bag of black eyed peas on the kitchen counter. Immediately, I knew that it wasn't going to be a pleasant dinner. It would result in me sitting alone at the table staring at the beans as my mother said "you're not excused until you eat 5 more beans."

Regardless of the bad association, I grabbed the bag and headed home.

This soup was delicious and I didn't even notice the black eyed peas.  For the recipe, read after the jump.