Sweets of Summer: Coconut Macaroons

This week I decided to try out Coconut Macaroons, something new for me. An incredibly easy way to make some delicious treats on a hot summer day. The recipe was easy enough to follow, as long as you have an electronic mixer. My little handheld worked just fine and I had no problems getting the egg whites the right texture. Keep in mind that you don’t want to over mix the egg whites into the coconut, the mixture will turn a little soupier than necessary and melt. The only problem that I ran into was that my cookie scoop might be a little large for macaroons so I would try making them just a little smaller. Keep an eye on them and take them out of the oven right when they start to brown, they will cook quickly as soon as they do brown and can change the overall color. The taste was great; the sweet coconut really satisfied my sweet tooth. However, they don’t really keep very well so don’t plan too far ahead for when you will bake them. We are hardwired to associate the taste of coconut with tropical getaways and summer happiness so these little bites made the perfect summer sweet. All-in-all these sweets were well enjoyed and a recipe to be saved.

Sweets of Summer: Orange Dreamsicle

I have discovered a lot about myself in this little experiment, first and foremost, not everything I bake turns out the way I expect. There are a lot of different factors that could play into this, my oven belonging in the prehistoric era, or a recipe that just doesn’t work. I think that this was the case for the Orange Dreamsicle Cookies I tried to make last week. The idea was a fun one, orange flavored cookie dough with vanilla chips to create a taste reminisce of the popular popsicle. It was easy to make the actual cookie, but baking was a little bit of an issue. The bottoms browned then burned way too quickly, the middle of the cookies were still raw when I took them out of the oven and I could not get them off of the pan. After some trial and error, adjusting the oven temperature and moving the oven racks around a bit, I finally had one cookie sheet of halfway decent cookies. I still don’t know if the Tang in the cookies is what caused the bottoms to burn, but I found out that if you put the racks a little higher in the oven and lower the temperature by about 25 degrees then it should cook right. I can attest that the taste of cookies was great, if not a little unusual, you just have to be in the mood for something a little odd in order to really enjoy these cookies. I’m not sure if I would make these again, as fun as they were they were frustrating for me, not to mention the cleanup was a pain. So I will have to keep on my search for the perfect summer treat.

Sweets of Summer: Lime Sandwich Cookies with Blueberry Filling

I have a confession; I have been slacking off lately and am a week behind schedule. I am fully willing to blame two things; first, it has been incredibly hot and the idea of turning on my oven in my little house with no air conditioning is not pleasant. Second, I am in my final week of class and I have a ten page paper on Shakespeare and Women looming over my head. But finally I made cookies! They just happened to not turn out. This week I tried to make lime cookies with a blueberry frosting filling. The initial recipe that kept cropping up all over the internet was an eggless lime sugar cookie. Absolutely the first thing I noticed is that the dough was way too sticky. I ended up adding almost another half cup of flour in order to maintain the right consistency to chill and roll out the dough. After that it seemed to go smoothly, I baked the cookies for a little over twelve minutes, I took them out right before they started to brown. While I let them cool I undertook the icing, which was easy enough to make. Note: make sure that you have extra powdered sugar. The combination of butter and cream cheese makes the mixture rather soupy until you add some extra powdered sugar. I put it all together and was immediately disappointed. The cookies were rock hard. Eventually, after much internal discourse, I decided that this particular recipe just didn’t work. I think that just regular sugar cookies with a splash or two of lime juice would function just as well. I deemed the cookies inedible, and I had a ton of icing left over. My final verdict? The icing pairs really well with Graham Crackers.

My not so appetizing cookies.

Hooked on a Feeling!

So get this, I’m not writing about food this time. Instead I will be writing about just a movie, or rather 17 minutes of a movie. I had the opportunity to go to a screening of the upcoming Marvel film The Guardians of the Galaxy, and it was awesome! While we had no context to the scene that we watched there was one element that I really enjoyed as a wanna-be movie critic. The movie does an excellent job establishing the characters and creating a working dynamic between the characters. For me there is nothing more annoying than a flat character, so to have five main characters each with their own depth is incredibly important. Also, the quick banter between the group is not only entertaining, but binding as well, we see them grow as a group. The action sequence is equal parts humor and amazing stunts (mostly on Zoe Saldana’s part), making for a fast paced scene that doesn’t distract us from the goal of the scene. In turn, the visuals are stunning, the time that the production team has taken to create the Galaxy is well worth it. All-in-all this 17 minute taste has left me wanting more and incredibly excited for the premiere. In fact, this will be one of the first movies that I buy tickets in advance for. I have high hopes for this movie, and the faith that it will live up to my expectations.