Raisins might be the go-to dried fruit for a batch of oatmeal cookies, but I’m fairly certain that other berries aren’t off limits because of it. The variety of dried fruit in these cookies makes them taste lighter, maybe even a bit fresher than your average (if still tasty) batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. I purposely did not include any spices, like cinnamon or cardamom, in these cookies so that the berry flavors would really stand out. A little vanilla to accent the very buttery oatmeal background was all these cookies needed to make them very tasty.
The cookies come together just like any other cookie dough. Sometimes I’ll find that some of the berries want to stick together more than they want to stick to the cookie dough, and if that is the case, simply give the dough balls a little help with your fingers as you shape them and place them on the baking sheet.
My top choice for dried fruits for these cookies are raisins, cranberries and blueberries. You can feel free to use other dried fruits. I’d stay away from things like dried raspberries, which tend to have a lot of seeds even though they have a nice, sweet flavor to them. I like how the chewy fruit matches well with the chewy cookie here, so I didn’t break that up by introducing nuts to the recipe, either. Again, if you want to throw in a handful of walnuts or pecans to add a little crunch, feel free to play around with this recipe!
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Samoas cookies are great, but when you can’t have the real thing, a pint or two of Samoas Ice Cream, which Dreyers/Edys makes, can be a good stand in. The ice cream is vanilla caramel, with chunks of Samoas cookies and a fudge swirl. The flavors are basic – vanilla, caramel, coconut, chocolate and shortbread – and it’s easy to put them together into a homemade version of the ice cream.
Homemade Samoas are just too good to sacrifice into ice cream – although some might say that you’re just combining two of a good thing into an even better thing – after you take the time to make a batch from scratch . I prefer to put these flavors together in pieces because you get all the same flavors and it’s a whole lot easier. So, I used homemade vanilla ice cream as a base for a caramel and toasted coconut swirl and chunks of chocolate-dipped shortbread pieces.
The ice cream is a no cook recipe that uses milk and sweetened condensed milk. The sweetened condensed milk adds just about all the sugar that the ice cream needs, and also adds a hint of caramel flavor to the ice cream. If you don’t want to make this from scratch yourself, you can also start this recipe with about a half gallon of your favorite brand of vanilla ice cream.
I toasted the coconut, mixed it into some homemade caramel sauce and swirled it into the ice cream. For this particular batch, I actually used shortbread girl scout cookies that I dipped into melted dark chocolate. Again, any type of shorbread or butter cookie will work here. Stir the cookies into the softened ice cream along with the swirl. Let everything set up for a little bit in the freezer and you’re ready for a big bowl of Samoas.
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If you like flowers, you cannot beat this Buttercup Cakelet Pan for cuteness. The hard-annodized aluminum pan is made by Nordicware, is very durable, and also has a nice nonstick finish to make it easy to slide out the flower-shaped cakes. You can easily dress them up with a little icing, but these look great on their own or with a simple dusting of confectioners’ sugar.
No matter how you decorate them, a “bouquet” of these arranged on a platter would make a fantastic presentation for a spring or summer dessert. One easy way to dress them up would be to start with a vanilla or white cake recipe (a favorite cupcake recipe) and adding some lightly colored food coloring to it, then marbeling pink, yellow, purple and white batters into the cups for cakes that definitely need no further embellishment.
There are plenty of cupcake books out there, but most of them seem to focus on decorating the cupcakes, rather than just baking a great tasting cupcake. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, and it does help to set those cookbooks apart from being “just another cupcake book.” Sometimes, however, you just want to bake some great cupcakes without making elaborate fondant decorations for them, too. Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes is a great place to start, with 175 recipes for delicious little cakes.
The book is divided up into chapters by type of cupcake. There are simple cupcakes, swirled cupcakes, dipped, glazed, filled and layered cupcakes, as well as a number of cupcakes that are made and decorated for holidays, from Valentine’s Day to Christmas. With so many recipes, you will never get tired of all the options, whether you like chocolate chip cupcakes, coconut rum-raisin cupcakes or s’mores cupcakes. The recipes are well written and easy to follow, with great flavor in the finished product. Better still, all of the recipes have a photo alongside, so you know exactly what you have to look forward to.
This is the kind of book that will become a nice reference in your collection of cookbooks, a place where you can always find a reliable cupcake recipe for just about any occasion. There are actually so many ideas in here that you don’t need to experiment much to find new flavor combinations (all you need to do is turn a page), but if you’re like me and enjoy finding new flavors on your own, you’ll definitely find that the techniques and components used in the recipes are things that you will turn to when you’re coming up with your own ideas.
