#84! Harissa & Parmesan Thumbprints

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Nothing much to say today! I feel like these are great great great great cookies! They’re spicy! And harissa is a verrrrrry on-trend ingredient these days! “The next sriracha,” that’s what people are saying! And I made up this recipe with my very smart brains, so in feeling very proud of myself right now. Enjoy, y’all biscuitheads! 

Here’s your dang recipe:

FOR THE COOKIE:

1 stick butter

1-3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup Parmesan cheese (grated, not powdered)

1 egg

2 oz cream cheese

2 tbsp water

A nano-pinch black pepper

Just mix all this junk together. Zero muss, zero fuss. Roll out smallish balls of the dough on your trays and then cram your thumb into the balls leaving a thumb-shaped situation.

FOR YOUR HARISSA INSIDES:

4 heaping tbsps of HARISSA!

6 oz cream cheese

Mix this shit together with a hand mixer and watch out! You might get harissa splat-back.

Fill each thumb hole with about a tsp of your hariss-mix. Bake these shits at 350 for about 20 min.

I feel so bad about how terrible this blog is, y’all!  Here’s a fun photo to look at. It’s a butt farting on an ice cream. 

Oh now I feel bad about the butt/fart. So here’s one of my most favorite videos. (LINK HERE, Y’ALL!)

“What else, BABY?”

#83! VANDERCLAMS BRANDY Snaps!

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At work this week, I sat in on a digital marketing conference, where I learned all about social media influencers.  Have you heard of these people?  They have like an Instagram and maybe a Snapchat and they have a blog about whatever!  Maybe they’re an expert on something – like crop tops or waterslides….  Maybe they’re just really handsome and they take their shirts off a lot.  Big brands find these people and pay them to create content!  OH!  And – the followings don’t have to be super-huge.  Some brands prefer MICRO-INFLUENCERS!

Brand Managers and Social Marketing Agency Folks, hello.  I would like to invite you to spend your marketing dollars on 100 Cookies.  I’m what they call a NANO-INFLUENCER.  I have literally ones of followers.  While I would probably be the best match for bakeware and baking ingredients, I feel like I could also sell the following goods/services:

• Netflix nature shows
• Pillows / blankets
• Inexpensive rosé wines
• Wigwam motels
• Mini Coopers
• Old Navy unmentionables
• Walhalla Ravine tourism office
• Lisa Loeb albums (really just the one album – Firecracker – remember that one???  So good!)

So – if you rep any of the above, shoot me a dang email!  Hamburgerbrown@yahoo.com! That’s my real email, y’all! 

Here’s a sample:

Oooh weeeeee! Have you ever had glass after glass of premium, high-quality VANDERCLAMS BRANDY* and thought to yourself “wow! VANDERCLAMS BRANDY is the best damn brandy!  It’s grand-slam brandy! It’s fine-and-dandy-like-sour-candy brandy!”???

I sure have!

And now, you can have that high-quality, premium 100% brandy in cookie form!  INTRODUCING VANDERCLAMS BRANDY SNAPS! Wow! Here’s your dang recipe! 

For your VANDERCLAMS BRANDY SNAP SHELLS**:

1 stick of butter

1/4 cup, gran sugar

1/3 cup, brown sugar

1/2 cup, molasses

1 tbsp VANDERCLAMS BRANDY

3/4 cup, flour

nano-pinch, salt

micro-pinch ginger

In a saucepan, melt your butter with your two sugars and the molasses.  NOTE – British people call molasses “treacle”.  Isn’t that something???  OK – this junk will start to bubble – yes – that’s what you want.  A good bubble, but only for a minute.  DO NOT let your molasses mix over-bubble, friendo.  Set your just-bubbled mix off the heat and mix in all the rest of your junk.  It’ll be sticky and not like dough at all.

Now then, spoon out about 6 tablespoon-sized blobs on a parchy-papered baking sheet and cook these mammajammas at 325 for 10 – 12 min.  THEY WILL SPREAD AND BUBBLE!

I think you need to do like one tray at a time – I think the upper rack doesn’t cook the same as the middle rack, so just do one middle-rack tray and budget your time accordingly.  ALSO – once these come out of the oven, you need to roll these shits out and you have a smallish window to do that….  ONE TRAY AT A TIME!!!

HEY!  Remember those Chinese finger traps….  See below….  You want to roll your slightly cooled off, but still quite warm snaps to look like these.  Be ever so tender and gentle with these guys and drape them over a greased up metal handle something.  I used my wisk – the handle is like maybe an inch in diameter and it’s metal, so get one of those and drape your junk.  You’ll need to use your hands for a lot of this and you will absolutely burn yourself, but that’s what it takes for A+ snaps, y’all!

(It’s a trap!)***

Here’s a JACK VOLPI TRICK – if you can stomach the pain, hold your snap into shape on your metal handle for about a minute.  The snap will be much snappier if you do that.

FOR THE CREAM FILLING:

 2 cups heavy cream 

1/3 cup sugar 

2 tbsp VANDERCLAMS BRANDY!!!!

Whip all this junk in a chilled mixing bowl until you have whipped cream! It’s that simple! And don’t you just love the rich, dynamic flavor of VANDERCLAMS BRANDY just sitting all up in that whipped cream????  ME TOOOOOOOOO! 

Once your cream is creamed, pipe it into your brandy snap shells.  And then I fancied these shits up with sprinkles! COOL, RIGHT? ENJOY RESPONSIBLY!!!

*I made up Vanderclams Brandy! Yay! 

**I pinched most of this recipe from that Pioneer Woman from the teevee! 

*** I pinched this photo from a google image search! I didn’t draw it myself! Google “admiral ackbar finger trap” and you’ll find it! Yay!

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#82! ROOT BEER WHOOPIE PIES, Y’ALL!

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hey!

Can we all agree that root beer is a total dad drink, y’all?  Jimmy’s been drinking a lot of root beer lately, which means I’ve started drinking a lot of root beer lately, and every time I take a sip, I get immediate dad flashbacks (because my dad also loves root beer, ok???).  So here’s a few quicko dad stories, since I haven’t had a dad blog yet:

1.  He likes to tell stories, but gets easily distracted.  Let’s say he’s driving you to soccer practice and he’s in the middle of a story about his Cleveland days.  Don’t get offended if he drifts off and starts talking about the price of a bucket of chicken at the KFC.  That’s just how his brains work!
2. I took my dad on a trip to Florida for Spring Training about 7 years ago – just the two of us.  We were having a big post-game seafood dinner and he had a few Harvey Wallbangers (or whatever the fuck he was drinking), got a little blotto, and basically asked me if I was a gay.  I said I sure was – and he was officially the first person I came out to! Yay!
3. Speaking of vacations with Dad, he sleeps in his TWs* and black socks and listens to sports radio on his walkman.  Tee hee hee!
4. He was married to Mama Bird for a long time, and then he wasn’t.  And then he fell in love and married our step-mom Carol.  She’s so nice and she, my dad, and my mom all get along super well now, which makes me real real happy. Hi Carol!
5. One of my dad’s proudest moments was when he took me and Rita to a Columbus Clippers baseball game when we were kiddos.  The Kroger grocery store was filming local yokels that night and they used him in a commercial saying “LET’S GO!”  He then went on to be a hand model in some other ad!  A HAND MODEL!!!  He’s so so proud of this!

OK – scroll down for some great great great dad pics. But right here, right now is the recipe for these dang dad-inspired root beer whoopie-doos.

COOKIES:

1 stick soft as shit butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup buttermilk (or here’s a fun sub – 1/2 cup milk + a little less than 1 tbsp cream of tartar)

1/2 tsp root beer extract (you may need to order this junk online.  I found mine at the weirdo spice dump at North Market)

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

Mix this shit and bloop your blobs on a sheet and bake ’em up for 12 min at 375.  Yay!

MARSHMALLOW FROSTING:

Ugh – I melted about 5 tbsp of butter and mixed that with 1-1/2 cups of powdered sugar, about 3/4 of a small tub of marshmallow fluff, a blip of slat, a blop of vanilla and a bloop of milk.  Adjust accordingly for the right consistency, which should be like a thickish, but not overly thick frosting-like situation.

ATTENTION! These can be made with ice cream as well – like to be root beer float sandwiches????  Yeah! Yes yes yes yes!!!!! YAAAAASSSS!

Yay!

*tighty whities

Here are those pics I promised!

My dad in the Air Force!

My dad & me on my front patio!

Everyone gets a hat but me…. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A bonus pic of my friend Meredith, when she was a kid on the same Walt Disney World railroad!!!! Hee hee hee!!!

#81! Nutter Butter Lamb Cake???

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Hey! Spring has sprung all up in my face, y’all!  Guess who’s a little hungover?

Me, y’all!

My friend Cammy came over last night and we had some champs and watched the Rupaul show. Then we had the brilliant idea to go see real life drag queens! Weeeeee! I have a ton of respect for these ladies – it takes serious nards to do drag. (I’ve never done it, but if I do (I won’t) my drag name is Frosty Double-Stack.)

Anyway, I’m real tired today! Thankfully, decorating my Easter nutter butter lamb cake is real real easy! It’s just a pile of nutter butters (about 3.5 packages worth) with a bunch of grape jelly (about half a smallish jar) holding everything in place and a heap of peanut butter frosting. Pretty wild, huh?

NOTE – if you attempt this shit at your place, leave your NBs sitting out two days before at room temp to medium soften up.  Assemble and frost this thing the day before the big event and by the time you cut into it on day 3, it’ll slice like a dream!  This thing was no-joke delicious….  NO JOKE!

Here’s a run down of other lamb cakes from years past. Enjoy and have a great easter, y’all!

I modeled for that last cake – mustache twins!!!!

#80! Moist-Moist-Moist Butter Bars

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So Rita and I were in Arizona last week.  Hiking & canyons & painted deserts & petrified forests & mountain cabins!  I rented us a dingus car and then made my sister drive it up and down all of Arizona’s  mountains because I’m afraid of heights!  

To be totes honest, the main reason for the trip was to stay at the wigwam motel. I’d been wanting to go for a few years, but Jimmy thought the idea was real, real lame. Thankfully, Rita was up for it. 

The Wigwam Motel is off of Rte 66 in Holbrook, Arizona, which is like literally nowhere. The only other thing in town is this rock shop with a bunch of dumb dinosaurs out front: 

The motel is just around the corner and it’s just like a motel but all of the normal rooms were built to look like wigwams, ok??? And they all have old-timey cars parked out front. 

The insides are mostly normal for pretty old motels – they had normal beds, very normal bathrooms and normal  TVs.  (No VH1, so we couldn’t watch the new Rupaul Drag Race…. )  Here’s me modeling the inside of a Wigwam…. NORMAL, RIGHT?????

(shiny forehead!)

It was cold that night, so we cranked up the furnace to a million and I spent the entire night scared that the furnace would explode and we’d be burned alive.  So, if you go, maybe go in the summer when the furnace explosion risks are much lower….  I can’t stress enough how normal it is! 

And that’s the end of my wigwam adventure!  More pictures:

We did all of these great great things and then ended up back in Phoenix.  We went to the Chestnut Fine Food & Provisions and we shared the butter bar there. REAL TALK, team – this was the best dang thing I’ve had in a long long time. I found a recipe online and tried my best to replicate:

FIRST LAYER:

1 box yellow cake mix 

1 stick butter – MELTED!

1 egg

SECOND LAYER:

2 cups powdered sugar

2 eggs

1 pack cream cheese (8oz)

Splash, vanilla

Parch-paper an 8×8″ tray.  Mix first layer first and mash that into the tray.  Then mix second layer and blop that on top of first layer. Then bake the whole mess at 45 min at 350. Maybe bake for 50 minutes. The center part needs to be cooked through!

IMPORTANT – you absolutely need to chill these in the freezebox for about 2 hours so the middle is completely set and doesn’t just bloop out all over the granite countertops. I took mine out too early and it was a complete murder scene and I cried for a good 29 minutes!

(NOTE – I promise to keep working on this recipe. Not my best work, y’all!)