Discovering 2014: Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was Cookie Sticks. As you can see from my title, the sticks part is debateable! There's a bunch of pins on Pinterest showing these gorgeous cookie sticks, which seemed simple enough. Well, I made cookies, at least. :)

The last time I made chocolate chip cookies from scratch was about a decade ago. I still don't know what I did wrong, but they were absolutely inedible, and I left the baking to my husband for many years afterward. With all the baking I did over the past couple of months though, I was confident I could get this finally right.

Discovering 2014: Whipped Shortbread

 Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was Whipped Shortbread, using this recipe from Taste of Home. My suggestion, if you decide to use their recipe, is to drop the cornstarch ingredient because these come out with an overly powdery taste. They're okay, but they could be better. Next time we do these we'll probably try this recipe from Food.com instead.

The husband and I decided to halve the recipe since we really didn't want over 100 cookies. Even with halving it we still ended up with nearly 75 cookies.

Discovering 2014: Pancake Bites

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Good morning! Today's project was Pancake Bites, following the directions from this pin. The simple version is to bake pancake batter in a muffin pan at 350°F for 12-14 minutes, but you can add more to jazz up the bites!

I'm not remotely close to a morning person, so using a Bisquick mix sounded much more appealing to me at 8:30am compared to making my own. I used one of the modified versions they offer that includes 1tsp vanilla extract and 2tsp baking powder (halved to 1/2 and 1, respectively).

Discovering 2014: Cookie Bowls?

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was Cookie Bowls. As you can see, something didn't go as planned. My results reminded me of this:

Discovering 2014: Cauliflower Cheesesticks

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was Cauliflower Cheesesticks, following this recipe from the Yummy Foods Made Healthy blog.

The "cheesesticks" tasted great, but the unfortunate part is that we had to eat them with a fork because we were unable to do the "flip loaf over" part without destroying it, so one side was completely loose. The husband and I were thinking of trying this again in the future, but more akin to breadsticks instead of cheesesticks.

Discovering 2014: Japanese Cheesecake

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was Japanese Cheesecake, which the husband and I made following this recipe from the Green Cilantro blog. The best description I read of this type of cheesecake is that it "looks like pound cake, tastes like cheesecake." I won't disagree, it certainly tastes quite similar to a cheesecake.

The only deviation we made was using a 9" springform round instead of a 7", since we couldn't justify buying a 7" for a single recipe. This made our result flatter than what Green Cilantro pictured. For some reason ours never became golden brown on the top even though we cooked it following their times (even had it got a bit longer). It tastes fine, but for the amount of time it took to make it compared to a traditional style cheesecake, I can't say we'd bother with it again.

We had our hands full most of the time, but I did manage to grab a few pictures while we were getting the many different pieces together.

Discovering 2014: Homemade Nutter Butters

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was Homemade Nutter Butters. The recipe I used was from the Cookies and Cups blog. The only modifications I would do next time is use less than one-inch rolls (mine came out huge compared to hers) and one cup less powdered sugar in the filling (the taste is close, but too sweet). Our yield was about 33 sandwich cookies and they taste great. Pictures of the creation process are below!

Discovering 2014: Sugar Sprinkles Cookies

.Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was Sugar Sprinkles Cookies. Yes, these are just sugar cookies with sprinkles on them, but hey, I've never made homemade sugar cookies before (the husband normally does the baking) so it's a first for me!

The recipe from Averie Cooks was spot-on and the only problem I had was having to lengthen my cook times, but I think that's because I made my cookies larger than they did. Especially the giant cookies.

WHAT?! GIANT COOKIES?? Well, check out my pictures of the creation process!

Discovering 2014: Homemade Cheez-Its

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was Homemade Cheez-Its, which used a recipe blogged by Shopgirl. Take note that she uses "tsp" for tablespoon instead of "tbsp", which may save you some confusion when it comes to the water.

The only differences I made was using an 8-oz bag of pre-shredded mild cheddar cheese and needing 5 tbsp of water instead of the 3-4 she noted. I also didn't have a fluted pastry cutter, so we used a pizza cutter. Since I used our convection oven, the cook time was about 3-5 minutes more than her max of 10 minutes.

While I wouldn't say it's an exact replica of Cheez-Its, they are definitely tasty (and have my kids' stamp of approval) and are similar in flavor. Check out my pictures below taken during the creation process.

Discovering 2014: Italian Lemon Drop Cookies

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was Italian Lemon Drop Cookies, better known as Anginetti. I followed this recipe from Food.com exactly, and they turned out perfectly. Since I didn't have to deviate from the recipe at all, I'm just going to simply share some pictures I took while working on them!

Discovering 2014: Edible Glitter

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today's project was Edible Glitter (homemade sprinkles), which came from this pin by She Knows. I honestly used more suggestions from the comments than from the original directions in the article, and it came out wonderfully that way.

Here's a VERY important thing to remember with this project: do NOT use wax paper! It could start a fire. Make sure you're using parchment paper in your oven.

I got four smaller bowls, sugar, measuring cup, baking pan, food coloring, parchment paper, and grapefruit spoons (though I'm sure any spoon would work). The oven should be pre-heated to 310°F (which is 285°F in a convection oven).