Carrot Oatmeal Whoopie Pies with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

A little over a week ago, my roommates and I ate at a new restaurant not far from our East Side abode: Hillside Farmacy. As one may guess from the name, they use locally-sourced ingredients (except for, say, the oysters), which seems to be an excellent trend among Austin eateries. Oh, and speaking of trendy, so were the waitstaff along with most of the customers. I never feel cool enough in this town, especially during SXSW days.

During the brief wait for a table, we ogled what was housed in the bakery case. The presence of macarons will never not excite me, plus there were pastries, cupcakes, chocolates, mini tarts, and what looked to be carrot cake whoopie pies. These all come from local bakeries.

After our tasty sandwiches, Maddie and I decided to split a macaron (rose) because she had never had one, and one of the whoopie pies since they looked/sounded good and were recommended by the waitress. The tasty not-so-little cookie sandwich inspired me to make some myself!

Martian Cookies!

My cat is in Austin now and I have finally baked something.  I think that means I’m moved in!  We’re going to ignore those three boxes in my room (two and a half, really), okay?  Deal.

What to bake first in the new abode?  Cookies seemed like a no-brainer.  I almost went with oatmeal chocolate chip as they are an old favorite, plus I’ve never blogged them.  But then I remembered something a bit similar that Jill had told me about a few times: Martian Cookies!

What gives them the extra-terrestrial name?  Zucchini!  (Martians are totally green, duh.)  They’re not super green, though; you just see little flecks from the skin.  If you or anyone you’d feed these to are weirded out by the presence of a veggie in your cookies, don’t be.  It’s undetectable.  If anything, you’ll be like, “Mmm, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies!  But what’s that?  Ohh, butterscotch!”  That stuff is tricksy like that.

Meanwhile, the zucchini martians are on soft cookie patrol.  

Basler Brunsli (Chocolate-Almond Spice Cookies)

Remember when I mentioned how I like baking cookies for backstage orchestra concert treats?  Musicians love to chow down on sugar during intermission, so it’s a good way to get rid of share a bunch of cookies.  This past weekend provided this opportunity, which I’m grateful for because it was also when my aunt’s funeral took place.  Baking can be very therapeutic, so I got to working on this batch of cookies when I got home.

The mighty viola section. (Photo from facebook, edited but not taken by me.)

When Victoria posted these brunsli cookies last December, they headed straight to my mental to-bake list.  (’tis the season to make her cookie recipes from that month, apparently.)   Technically they’re a type of Swiss Christmas cookie, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be enjoyed at any time of the year.  I had kept in mind that they were gluten-free as there are a few musicians in this orchestra with Celiac disease, one happening to be my stand partner for the week.  Before I made these, she even asked if I had known of a cookie that sounded really similar to these, but couldn’t remember the name.

Key Lime Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies

One of the things I’ve learned in life is that you can’t tell my mom anything.  I think this is just a personality quirk that my family has learned to accept, and it can be pretty amusing at times.

My parents have a quasi-retirement house up at Lake LBJ which they tend to go to on the weekends.  It’s in a neighborhood, but there are lots of wild animals around, most notably deer.  Now, to give you an idea of my mom’s compassion for animals, pretty much every pet we ever had was a stray that she rescued.  Naturally, with all the deer traipsing through the yard at the lakehouse, my mom has resorted to feeding them.  This is a big nono in that area and last year she was caught and fined a hefty fee.   Most people would learn their lesson from this situation and stop feeding the deer.

Well…I was up there this past weekend, and guess what?  My mom didn’t listen and has resumed her devious/compassionate behavior.  It’s really obvious too because there will be up to 30 deer in the yard!  There’s a pregnant one that will even eat out of her hand.  After the couple of times I saw her feed them, she said, “You guys are making me look bad!  Go on, get outta here!” and then proceeded to feed them some more.  haha, oh my… 

Vegan Ginger Cookies

Do you have a friend who you can always count on to show up late?  Like they don’t even have to try, they’re just gifted with the skill of tardiness?

Hi, that’s totally me.

I really don’t like being like this, though.  In fact, I’ve checked out a time management book for people like me, as lame as that sounds.  And in an effort to be less high maintenance, I’m attempting to accept my hair in its natural state, meaning no blow drying or flat ironing.  (Ever wondered how Ron and Hermione’s offspring would look?  Now you know.)

I made these cookies a long time ago, as in a week before the Easter bunny made his rounds.  They’ve been on my mental to-bake list and I finally had a party to go to, and therefore a reason to make and share them. 

Chocolate Stout and Irish Cream Whoopie Pies

I think this marks my first time posting a festive recipe several days before the actual holiday.  Shocking, right?  Unsurprisingly, this was kind of an experiment that I thought about doing awhile ago.  I didn’t come up with the recipe, but did try a different execution of it.

Did you know that I made a wedding cake almost a year ago?  It was this already huge chocolate stout cake recipe tripled and it was ridiculously delicious.  If you’ve never had chocolate stout cake, I think you should change that very soon.  It doesn’t taste beer-y, but has an even deeper chocolate flavor.  And just so you know, even beer haters like it.   By the way, all three winners of that Scharffen-Berger Chocolate Adventure Contest (remember?) incorporated stout into their cupcakes.  That’s saying something.

Anyway, I think Deb basically halved that cake recipe (she’d made it into a bundt before), so I knew what I was getting myself into taste and texture-wise.  I didn’t know if one could make whoopie pies simply by scooping cake batter without any alterations onto a cookie sheet, but luckily for me, it pretty much worked with this recipe!

Peppermint Brownie Cookies

Have you ever played Flip Cup?

My suggestion if you haven’t: Don’t.

This was happening at a party last night (Monday = Saturday for musicians), and it was my first time playing.  It turns out that I’m pretty good at it which is surprising, but I think I’ll pass next time unless water is the beverage of choice.  (No, none of us are college students anymore. )  Please don’t judge.

Note to self: Don’t blog about drinking games.  Do blog about cookies.

We’re already halfway through December, and here I am finally posting something festive.  Typical, right?

I’ve had my eye on these brownie cookies for quite some time now.  Cookies in brownie form (AKA blondies) are delicious, so brownies in cookie form sounded like an obvious win. 

Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

See? I wasn’t kidding about the pumpkin madness.

How does one run a baking blog and not gain tons of weight?  Answer: bake something, have a little of it, then give the rest of it the heck away!  (and the rest of the time, try to eat on the healthier side…)

For me, this is especially true with cookies as they seem to be both my specialty and my weakness.  When I made Chai-Spiced Snickerdoodles a couple weeks ago, I may or may not have ruined my dinner a few nights in a row because I had no one to give them to.  Definitely should have halved that recipe, or at least put half the dough in the freezer…there’s another idea!

Being an orchestral musician, symphony concerts are the perfect excuse to bake.  I just bring the cookies backstage with me, and hungry musicians gobble them up during intermission and after the concert!  It really is a win/win situation.