Apple Crisp

As many of you know, I went to Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY. And every year at the beginning of fall on the commons, there is the best weekend of the year: APPLEFEST.

Applefest consists of every fall treat you can imagine. There are apple cider donuts, kettle corn, deep fried Oreos, pumpkin funnel cakes and every kind of pie that you can imagine. It is the best thing ever.

Unfortunately, I was stuck in Connecticut this year and couldn't make it up for some apple-y goodness. So I had to make my own.

I went out and bought some apple cider, some apple cider donuts and a TON of apples from Costco. Then in my cabinet I had this:

I could have made some crumble from scratch, but I figured I already had it, so I used it up.

This is pretty good. And could not be easier.

I sliced up some apples with my handy dandy apple slicer. Put them in 4 small ramekins. Mix up the butter and crumble mix and put it on top. Then bake it up.

Now, this is nowhere near as delicious as a homemade version. It takes a long time for the crumble to get crispy and by that time the apples are almost apple-saucy. But it's hard to go wrong here. Next time, I would want more crumble (because that's the best part.)

Pumpkin Oatmeal Scotchies

Fall. It is the best. Leaves changing colors, not sweating every time you walk out your front door, and pumpkin everything.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes are one of the best and most delicious of the pumpkin flavored treats. (I've had two in the past two days...I try to just order a latte, but pumpkin spice just comes out instead...). And I just stumbled upon a recipe for it!!!! (See, StumbleUpon IS great!) I also love that Pinterest and Blogs EXPLODE with all things pumpkin. It could not be better.

I was deciding which pumpkin-ey goodness to make. I was all ready to make a pumpkin loaf when I had a sudden hankering for Oatmeal Scotchies. AND I had butterscotch chips already in my cabinet. It was perfect.

Google provided me with a great recipe.

And the cookies were delicious.

As a little experiment, I tried adding chocolate chips to two of the cookies. It wasn't great. Don't waste your chocolate chips here...

Pumpkin Oatmeal Scotchies
(Two Peas & Their Pod)

Yields 2 1/2 dozen cookies

1 1/4 cup cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
3 cups old-fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips

"Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat and set aside.

 Whisk flour, baking soda, pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.

Beat butter, sugar and brown sugar until smooth and creamy. Add egg and vanilla extract. Next, add in pumpkin and mix until combined.

Slowly add in flour mixture. Stir in oats and butterscotch chips.

Drop dough by the tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the cookies are set and golden. Remove cookies from the oven and cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely."

Martini Cookies

This past week I had a cookie order for Martini Cookies.

Now, I am not new to making drink cookies, but I am new to making Martini Cookies.
It is really hard to show a clear liquid on a cookie. I didn't it to look like the glass was empty, but martini's don't have color. So I decided to make the glass part white and tint the liquid slightly green, like the olives were reflecting through the drink.

I thought that these would look the best with a black outline. So my icing colors were:
Black piping
White flood
Green-ish White Flood
Green 20-Second
Red 20-Second

I made myself a cookie cutter template using a plastic binder divider.

Then made the dough, cut them out, and baked 'em up.

I was a little worried about them breaking or me screwing something up, so I always recommend making a few extras.

I had extra dough because the order was only for a dozen cookies. So I made some olive cookies by squeezing a round cutter into an oval shape. Then I still had some extra, so I froze the rest of the dough.

I started by making some royal icing transfers. I lined a cookie sheet with wax paper. Then I piped red dots all over the sheet. I let that dry for about an hour. Then I went back with the green 20-second icing and made the red of the olive shape.  Then let this dry overnight.

For the cookies, I started by outlining the martini cookies in black and let that dry for about an hour. Then I flooded the greenish-white section and dropped on the olive royal icing transfers. Then let that dry for a bit. Then I flooded the white parts and let that dry for a few hours, preferably overnight.

I finished them off by painting on the toothpick. To do this, grab an unused paintbrush, your gel food coloring and some water. Mix about equal parts water and food coloring (For this, a drop each is plenty). Then just paint lightly. You really need to make sure that your icing is very dry to do this or else you will poke holes in your icing.

Finally, I wanted to make them pop a little more so I re-outlined them in black. I thought this also helped to make it look like the olives and toothpick and liquid were inside the glass.