Because I’m that kind of girl, when I read something about food that sounds really good, well I have to try it out and that’s how I ended up making a few do-it-yourself projects on my day off. Plus I had to make cookies for Nick’s father for his birthday so I did that too.
Getting Creative
My first project was after reading through David Lebovitz cookbook “My Paris Kitchen” and he talked about salted butter and making your own, so of course he made it sound so good that it was the first thing I had to try. It was very simple and one that I will have to try with various salts. I use mines to sauté veggies and they come out with just the right amount of seasoning.
Make Your Own Salted Butter
¼ to ½ teaspoon of large flake sea salt
1 stick of unsalted butter
Simple knead salt into softened butter and then rechill.
See told you it was simple. I don’t have a picture this time because I didn’t have a cute container to put it in.
The next project was one that I had seen on FaceBook and it was for a coffee creamer and anyone that knows me, knows that I have a thing for coffee and a little flavoring. Of course buying the bottled creamer is expensive as hell so I don’t keep it in the house, I would rather spend that three bucks on some good chocolate instead. This was another easy little project and now I can’t stop making it, which reminds me, have to go grab some more ingredients as I’m all out of creamer.
Ingredients
14 oz Sweet Condensed Milk
2 cups Milk
1/3 cup of Flavored Syrup or
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon Cinnamon Directions
Mix it all together and enjoy
With this one you can play with the flavorings by adding coco powder or different extract flavorings such as Almond or Hazelnut or whatever, go crazy and have fun. with this one to make your morning coffee even more enjoyable.
The third DIY project again came from something I read on FaceBook and that was brown sugar. Who knew you could make your own brown sugar and make enough for that cookie recipe your ready to bake. Well you can and it’s easy peasy too. ☺
Brown Sugar
Homemade Brown Sugar Ingredients
1 cup White Sugar
1 tablespoon Molasses Directions
Mix well together, can use a hand mixer to incorporate but I found that it works better for me to just use a fork and mash it all together.
If you want a dark brown sugar just add another tablespoon of molasses.
Again this was such an easy fix considering I had no brown sugar in the house and had to make cookies for the boyfriend’s father for his birthday. Which leads me to my last project for the day, making Boozy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.
I found out that it was his father’s birthday to late to go out and buy a gift so I told him I would bake him a cake or something like that. He let me know that his favorite was oatmeal raisin cookies so of course I told him I would whip up a batch over the week and get it too him.
During the course of dinner as we were ordering cocktails he told me that his favorite cocktail was a Brandy Alexander and it got me to thinking I wonder if I could turn that into a cookie.
I again started doing some online research looking for what was exactly in a Brandy Alexander and thinking of ways to incorporate it into the cookie. I found that it was brandy of course, a chocolate liqueur, some cream and nutmeg. Ok now how do I turn that into some cookies, easy I soaked the raisins in some brandy and added some chocolate chips to the cookie mixture with a little cream and a dash of nutmeg.
Perfection in a cookie, the boyfriend’s father loved them, so now I have another cookie recipe to whip out when the mood strikes. Though I want to try to make them a little bit boozier like my rum cakes (that’s another recipe).
Cream the butter with the brown sugar and white sugar
Combine egg, vanilla, cream, cinnamon and the nutmeg and beat until smooth
Stir in the flour and salt until smooth
Add in the rolled oats, raisins (drained) and chocolate chips
Beat the mixture well
Drop cookies onto greased or parchment paper cookie sheet and bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light brown
*Boozed-up Raisins
In a bowel cover 1 cup of raisins with your choice of brandy and soak for a couple of hours.
Drain before adding to cookie mixture
Like I said I’m going to play around with this recipe because even though the flavor was there I was looking for something a little more kick ass in the booze department.
Yep I was a busy woman that day and found out that I can create a lot of great things to eat on with just a few ingredients. My next project is to finally make a meal from my new cookbook “My Paris Kitchen”, this man has me ready to head to Paris just to eat. When that day comes I will have the full menu posted here with hopefully some great pictures to go along with it.
Enjoy your cookies and let me know if you made some creamer for that morning or heck afternoon coffee.
Prepping for cookiesCookie dough coming togetherFresh from the oven
Life Food and Me 
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