Like I said, I have been baking. But for a while I was making cookies from recipes I had already used. For instance, I made the Cake Boss peanut butter cookies to bring to a housewarming party. Or I made Martha's Snickerdoodles because my boyfriend really likes them. I didn't want to blog about stuff I had already done! That would've been boring. So I suppose I set a bad precedent for posting this month. Ok, enough of me trying to defend myself.
The first new thing that I've made lately was from Martha (naturally) and was a cookie called Buttered Rum Meltaways. These were a fairly uneventful cookie so I'll just give you the highlights. The first thing I noticed was that they have all the fun spices that are seen in pumpkin cookies. So they automatically smelled delicious. The second thing I noticed was that they have a lot of rum in them. Like, 1/4 cup. I mixed up all the ingredients and had to roll the cookies into two 1 1/4 inch logs of dough. That's a really small cookie. Like really small. So small that I triple checked to be sure I had the measurements correct and even watched a video of Martha rolling the dough from the Martha Stewart show. I even got out a ruler for this one! So, I just decided they are supposed to be tiny, bite-size cookies.
To put my laziness in perspective, these cookies had to be in the freezer for about 30 minutes and I left them for 3 days. All I had to do was slice and bake and I was too lazy to do it. Well, ok, slice, bake, and coat with powdered sugar. I thought they were decent cookies in the end but not really to my taste. My mom described them as "like a gingersnap...now they're rummy...now they're like a pie!" They're basically that gum from Willy Wonka that is a meal in a stick of gum. Anyway, decent, but not great. Here's a picture:
Next, I made Martha's giant chocolate sugar cookies for colloquium. The recipe was supposed to yield 8 cookies but that was impractical so I made about 4 dozen. Easy recipe. Nothing super interesting. Fine cookies but not great. I prefer the Death by Chocolate chocolate fudge cookies. I don't really ever feel the need to go back to these cookies. So, moving on. But here they are:
Lastly, my mom and I made Martha's Browned Butter Toffee Blondies. These are freakin' amazing. Probably my second favorite thing behind the Pecan Tassies. It wasn't a hard recipe but there were steps involved. First, we had to brown 2 1/2 STICKS of butter. That's a whole lot of butter. Anyway, we had to cook it in a saucepan until it was "browned," whatever that really means. It smelled good though. Then we had to mix that with a huge amount of sugar and brown sugar. From there, your standard flour, baking powder, salt, egg type stuff. Oh yeah, and vanilla. My mom kind of dumped the vanilla in instead of measuring carefully. That vanilla must have tried jumping from her hands or something. So there may have been a bit of extra vanilla. Oh well. And finally, a cup of toffee bits and a cup of chopped
Anyway, Martha had instructed us to butter a pan, lay down a layer of parchment paper, and then butter the parchment paper. We initially resisted this direction but finally decided to trust Martha. It was a good choice. My goodness though, these things smell heavenly. They almost smell like maple syrup. My mom and I were supposed to let them cool completely and then flip the pan upside down to cut the blondies but we didn't even wait for them to cool before digging in with a knife and cutting off a slice. They're so so so good. I mean, amazing. So yummy. Especially warmed up. Mmmmm. I still have a few left and I'm excited to go home and eat one. Oh, we were supposed to use cookie cutters to make shapes. We didn't. That is all, here they are:
A Disney Moment: Great Mouse Detective
On to a new group of 5! Here we get into the Disney Renaissance with Great Mouse Detective, Oliver and Company, Little Mermaid, Rescuers Down Under, and Beauty and the Beast. So, I first saw Great Mouse Detective fairly recently as it had somehow not been on my Disney radar as a kid. It's a pleasant enough movie. It sets a really nice tone with the dancing ballerina toy because the animation in that moment is just so smooth and lovely. But from there, without being a Sherlock Holmes fan, there just wasn't much that grabbed me. I could get the most general Sherlock Holmes references but I think a lot of the nuance was lost on me. So, it's possible that if I had read Sherlock Holmes I would have appreciated it more.
Meanwhile, I loved seeing some callbacks to old films. Namely, Dumbo in the toy shop and the lizard from Alice. It was just a sweet touch. Anyway, the final verdict is that it was entertaining but somewhat forgettable. As such, it warrants a 4/5 (you fiend!).
