Peppermint Bark Meringue Cookies

I've never really had a job where everyone gave Christmas gifts to everyone else (granted, I've only had about 3 jobs that lasted to Christmas and beyond. But still: giving something to everyone was never a thing). So when my co-workers at SHAG started handing out gifts last year, I was a bit unprepared. I decided to change that this year.

Since I had leftover egg whites from my pinwheels, I started to look for meringue recipes (meringues are easier and quicker to make than macarons). At first I wasn't sure what to focus on. Then I had an idea: one of my favorite flavors of the Christmas/holiday season is peppermint, specifically peppermint bark. So I decided to make peppermint bark meringues. I started to specifically look for peppermint bark meringue recipes but I didn't like what I found. Eventually, I realized I'd have to make my own so I switched to searching for chocolate meringue recipes with the goal of dipping them in white chocolate and crushed candy canes. Eventually, I settled on a recipe from Beyond the Chicken Coop.

Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes

At last year's holiday dinner for work we did a gift exchange. I didn't like my original gift (it was two kitchen tools I knew I wouldn't use) so I asked to switch. My new gift was a tin of 4 dozen Kirkland Signature-brand chocolate-hazelnut candies (AKA Ferrero Rocher). I took them to Christmas Eve dinner to put them out as one of many offerings for dessert but we only ended up using 1 dozen. The rest sat in their original tin on the floor beneath my kitchen table for almost a year.

Which is why I finally decided to bake with them recently. I focused on cupcakes because I rarely make them (and I randomly bought a cupcake carrier/holder with a coupon at Michael's a while back and had yet to use it). Most of the recipes I found had the candy inside the cupcake but I wasn't sure about doing that (my overthinking brain kept going back to the idea that they'd be too hard to bite into). I finally settled on a recipe from Dixie Crystals (a cane sugar company) that sets the candy on top of the frosting. And since the frosting is Nutella (to go with the chocolate and hazelnut flavors of the candy), I decided to add some Nutella to the cupcake as well, using an idea I found on a food site from the UK.

Pumpkin White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Every year the Seattle Passport Agency holds a Passport Day, where the lobby is open on a Saturday for applicants who might not be able to apply for a passport during the week. It's a good opportunity for overtime (one I didn't take advantage of last year) despite being on a weekend. As I've done for previous Saturday overtimes, I decided to bake something to help us get through the somewhat long day (we clock in earlier on these days but also clock out earlier). Because it's officially fall, I decided on something with pumpkin. After a lot of searching (I had eggs to use up, so I was a bit picky this time), I finally chose a pumpkin cookie recipe from Dear Crissy.

Chocolate Mint Crinkles

Another one of my favorite cookies that we make around Christmastime is chocolate crinkle cookies. They're so chewy and chocolatey and delicious that I don't care how messy they are (which is saying something because I'm the baker who cleans as I work). One thing we've never thought to do, though, is add peppermint. Even without the internet to give us recipes with the exact amount, it's a pretty easy addition.

Which is why I decided to make peppermint crinkle cookies for work's usual Valentine's Day potluck. You see, we got some snow. Which lead to me staying close to home for about 4 days. During the first couple days I tried to use up two things: my packets of hot chocolate (because of the calories I don't drink it as often as I would like) and the almost-empty bottle of peppermint extract. Except using peppermint extract to make peppermint hot chocolate is A HORRIBLE IDEA! So with Monday off I decided to find a recipe and make the cookies in order to use up the extract (who says peppermint is only for Christmastime?). I ended up modifying a recipe from Betty Crocker's website. The recipe was for a chocolate crinkle version of the peanut butter blossoms (kinda like the peppermint thumbprint cookies I made once) except I left out the candy cane Hershey's Kisses.

Pumpkin Cake

Last week we had a potluck to celebrate the end of the fiscal year and reward ourselves for working hard and doing a great job (I have a feeling this'll be the last potluck for a while). Because it's fall I decided to make something pumpkin flavored. After a bit of debate over what kind of dessert to make (bars, cookies, cake, cupcakes...) I finally decided on making a cake since I hadn't made one in a while and I wanted to use up the the last of the caramel cream cheese frosting (based on some of the pins on my Pumpkin/Fall board, caramel goes just as good with pumpkin as it does with apple). I finally decided on a Pumpkin Snack Cake from Kitchen Meets Girl.

Fireworks Cookies & Cream Cookies

A few years ago I had a temp job gave employees a 4-day weekend because the 4th of July was on a Thursday that year. They probably did the same this year since the holiday was on a Tuesday. My current job isn't that generous (government/federal jobs must be like this in general since I had to work the day after Thanksgiving when I had a temp job at a bank one year). So to make up for it I decided to make some patriotic cookies to take into work on Monday. After looking at my patriotic treats Pinterest board (because really, where else do I have to look? 😏) I decided on Fireworks Cookies & Cream Cookies from Inside Bru Crew Life.

Red, White, and Blue Cheesecake

I kinda, sorta have two jobs right now. Last year I was hired by a recruiting company called Mountain LTD to work for CenturyLink in north Seattle. Earlier this year, one of my contacts from Mountain called to say that Mountain wanted all their Engineer Assistants (my position) working from Mountain's office in Renton. I am one of two EAs who can't because everything I need is at the CenturyLink office. So we figured out a way for me and the other EA to have work to do when not in Seattle: the other EA and I each spend two days a week in Seattle.

Why am I telling you this? Because I wouldn't be posting this if that hadn't happened. One of my co-workers in the Renton office decided to have a potluck for Memorial Day on the Friday before Memorial Day. As soon as she told me about it I immediately started searching for patriotic-colored desserts. As much as I wanted to, I had to stay away from desserts with fruit since I would be doing my shopping the Saturday before and most fruit (including strawberries, the red part of the dessert) doesn't last long. I finally decided on a three "layer" cheesecake from Tablespoon, a community of and for foodies.

Twix Bar Cookies

One of my favorite and least favorite things about the holidays is that my shows go on a little break. It's my least favorite thing for obvious reasons but at the same time, I also don't mind it because it that means I don't have as many shows to catch up on over the weekend. This leaves me with free time to bake if I want to. And after making the Milky Way cookie bars for Thanksgiving, I still had a lot of leftover Halloween candy so with only a couple shows to catch up on over Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to bake for my co-workers. There was no way I was going to get rid of my 3 Musketeers and M&Ms just yet so Twix was the only option. After looking at the Twix recipes I'd bookmarked, I decided on the cookies from Your Homebased Mom. The recipe is similar to your basic chocolate chip cookie recipe but also very different. Plus, they'd be easy to take into work.

Peanut Butter Truffle Brownies

Over the last few years I've lost interest in using box mixes to make cakes and brownies. Sure they're good in a pinch but why not make something from scratch? That's why I try to save recipes and buy cookbooks that embellish the box mixes. And when I decided earlier this week that I wanted to make peanut butter brownies to "break in" my new KitchenAid stand mixer and bake for the first time in my new apartment, I ended up finding a recipe similar to what I wanted in Betty Crocker's Fix with a Mix Desserts cookbook. It's not exactly what I wanted but I couldn't find that. And as I've said before, I'm no good at creating recipes on my own.

My new toy. Isn't it purrty?

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

As I've said before, sometimes you just gotta bake for fun. And other times, you gotta bake because you semi-promise a co-worker at your new job that you love to bake and you'll bring in treats the following week. I was determined to follow-through too.

Despite the heat.

Yup, Seattle and it's surrounding cities (including my hometown of Kent, just south of Sea-town) has been experiencing somewhat of a heat wave over the last couple weeks. We're talking 80s and 90s temps, something we're not used to. And definitely not weather I've ever baked in. Still, I wanted to make sure I kept my semi-promise.

I also wanted to get the jar of dry cookie ingredients off my desk. At my last job, my manager had received the jar as a gift from a vendor who wanted to work with us. I went into her office to ask her something and commented on the jar. So she gave it to me. When I took a closer look at it, I realized it wasn't just a homemade gift; it was from a company called SistersGourmet, which specializes in these mixes-in-a-jar gifts (if you want to make your own, though, just pick a recipe, layer the dry ingredients in a clean jar, screw on the lid, decorate, and attach a copy of the recipe).