Baking Mischief Is Two Years Old!

Let’s celebrate! Baking Mischief turns two years old today!

Happy Friday! Did you have a good work week? Today is an exciting day around here, because today, Baking Mischief turns two years old! December 1, 2015, I hit publish on my first recipe, Butterscotch Shortbread Thumbprint Cookies , and now two years, hundreds of recipes, and millions (millions!!) of visitors later, here we are.

Thank you to those of you who have been following along from the beginning and to those who joined up along the way. There is no way Baking Mischief would be here today without your support.

I know that I don’t write as much personal and behind-the-scenes stuff on the blog as many bloggers (guys, I’m shy), so I thought that to celebrate two years of Baking Mischief, I would share a little more than usual and tell you some fun facts you might not know about the site.

Interested? Here we go.

20 Things You Might Not Know About Baking Mischief

1. There are currently 265 posts on the site. 27 Weekend Posts (which I think are going to come back–stay tuned), 19 round-ups, 12 miscellaneous, and 207 recipes. Of those recipes, 96 are full-size, 94 are small-batch or recipes for two, and 17 are recipes for one.

2. Baking Mischief was almost a fandom food blog. My first vision for the site was one where I focused solely on film, television, and book-related recipes. I decided against it pretty quickly, but in some alternate timeline, it’s Nerd Month all day every day around here and the blog is called Fannish Kitchen (actual then-available name I considered).

3. Other names that might have been: Fangirl in the Kitchen, Windy Side of Care, As it Please Me (I was going through a Much Ado About Nothing phase with those last two), and My Best Vices (what?? why??).

4. Between Hannibal’s Lomo Saltado and Sanguinaccio Dolce , and my Game of Thrones Frey Pie , I believe Baking Mischief has the most cannibal recipes of any of the mainstream food blogs. If that’s not something to be proud of, I don’t know what is. 😉

5. And I’ve mentioned before that despite being absolutely delicious, Lomo Saltado is one of the least popular recipes on the site for some reason (though the Frey Pie is really popular). Other recipes I love that haven’t yet caught on include:

• Homemade Pudding Pops (SO good)
• Basil Chicken Pasta for Two (One of my tastiest, quickest, easiest weeknight dinner recipes)
• BLT Salad (It has croutons cooked in BACON GREASE!!)

6. I chose to die on Panini/Panino hill. This was a mistake.

7. I learned my lesson, and the official Baking Mischief Style Guide allows both donut and doughnut .

8. There is an official Baking Mischief Style guide.

9. This is my favorite Pinterest caption I’ve ever come across for one of my recipes.

10. And this the funniest recipe feature I’ve received.

11. 99% of the technical skills required to build and run this website were acquired playing Neopets in the aughts. The other 1% was a 1-unit CSS class I took in college.

12. There aren’t and probably never will be any seafood recipes for people on the site (there is a tuna High-value Dog Treats recipe for dogs). I’m not a huge seafood fan, and the only thing I know how to cook is dishwasher salmon .

13. The first (and one of the only) free products I’ve accepted since starting the blog were a couple of bully sticks for Ella just because I thought it was funny to tell people that free bull penises were one of the perks of having a food blog.

It took a couple minutes (and a few hilariously awkward photos) for Ella to figure out how to eat these #bestbullysticks but now she’s gnawing on them like a pro. She definitely gives them an A++ review! A post shared by Tracy (@bakingmischief) on Apr 27, 2016 at 3:44pm PDT

Snowball Cookies are perfect Christmas cookies. They have a cute festive name, they’re super easy to make, and they’re a total crowd-pleaser, so everyone’s happy when they show up on a cookie plate.

There are a lot of versions of Christmas snowball cookies out there. Most of them involve nuts, some of them pie crust, but this is what a snowball cookie was in my house growing up: crunchy, crumbly, buttery shortbread wrapped around a Hershey’s Kiss and dredged in powdered sugar.

I make them every year when my whole family is together for the holidays, and I always stash a couple at the back of the cupboard just for myself because even set out among total winners like my Snickerdoodle Sandwich Cookies , Chai Sugar Cookies , and Gingerbread Men , they are always one of the first cookies to disappear.

A Small-batch Snowball Cookie Recipe

Generally, I make a big batch of these for the holidays because the family loves them, and I like to include them in cookie trays for friends and neighbors, but I’m sharing a small batch today that makes about 10 cookies for those quiet December evenings when you’re not feeding a house or a neighborhood full of people.

Ingredient Notes

• Hershey’s Kisses: You can use almost any variety of Hershey’s Kisses to stuff these cookies, but their classic milk chocolate is still my favorite. If you don’t want an entire big bag of Kisses around your house, you can usually find mini bags of them in the candy aisle at the grocery store and most convenience stores.
• Salted butter: I call for salted butter in this recipe, but if all you have is unsalted butter, not a problem. Just add a heaping 1/8 teaspoon of salt to the dough along with the flour.

How to Make Snowball Cookies

1. In a medium bowl, beat together butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy.
2. Add flour and beat until no streaks of flour remain.
3. Scoop spoonfuls of dough and wrap them around unwrapped Kisses.
4. Bake until the edges and tips of the cookies are just lightly browned.
5. Roll in powdered sugar and enjoy!

Can snowball cookies be frozen?

Yes! Snowball cookies freeze well. Store in an airtight container or freezer bag in the freezer for up to 2 months.

Allow them to sit at room temperature for a few minutes before eating so the frozen chocolate kiss has time to defrost slightly, otherwise, they’re hard to bite into while frozen.

How long do snowball cookies stay fresh?

Snowball cookies will stay fresh for up to 5 days when stored in an airtight container at room temperature.

Can I double this recipe?

Yes! This recipe scales up with no preparation changes needed.

To double the recipe ingredients, hover over the serving size in the recipe card below or click if you’re on mobile, and slide the slider. If you’d like to make a full-size recipe for gifting or family, multiply the recipe by 4.

More Christmas Recipes

• The Best Crockpot Hot Chocolate
• Classic Hot Chocolate
• Peppermint Mocha
• Snickerdoodle Cookies

More Small-batch Cookie Recipes

• Small-batch Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Small-batch Shortbread
• Small-batch M&M Cookies
• Small-batch Peanut Butter Cookies

Equipment

• Handheld electric mixer

Ingredients

• ▢ 10 Hershey’s Kisses
• ▢ 1/4 cup ( 56g ) salted butter* softened
• ▢ 2 tablespoons ( 15g ) powdered sugar
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon ( 67g ) all-purpose flour

Topping

• ▢ 1/2 cup ( 60g ) powdered sugar

Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 400°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat. Unwrap 10 Kisses and set aside.
• In a medium bowl, combine softened butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Beat until well combined and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add flour and beat, starting on low, working up to high until mixture clumps and forms a dough. Scrape bottom and sides so no streaks of flour remain.
• Scoop a half-ounce spoonful of dough and roll into a ball. Flatten the dough between your palms and set a Kiss in the center. Wrap the edges of the dough around so all the chocolate is covered. Place on prepared baking sheet and repeat with the rest of the dough and candies.
• Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, until the edges of the dough are lightly browned. Cool on the baking tray until cool enough to handle.
• Pour powdered sugar into a bowl and roll cookies in the sugar until coated. Enjoy!

Notes

This Chocolate Pudding for Two is absolutely indulgent and decadent and one of the easiest things in the world to make.

Good morning! How are you on this fine Friday? Feeling a little harried from the holidays? Run down by the work week? If that’s the case, I have a little weekend pick-me-up for you today: the best, easiest, most amazing Chocolate Pudding for Two.

And if you’re sitting there, nose crinkled, remembering bland pudding eaten in school cafeterias out of little plastic cups, thinking you outgrew chocolate pudding years ago, friend, I have great news for you. You’re never too old for good chocolate pudding (and this is Good Chocolate Pudding TM).

Chocolate pudding is the perfect grown-up dessert because it feels absolutely indulgent and decadent, but it’s low-stress to make, and the active cooking time is short. So you can throw together a fabulous pudding dessert quickly and get right back to whatever important grownup things you were doing like, I don’t know, chopping down trees or taxes.

I love this particular pudding recipe so much that it has actually appeared on the site twice before. Once as filling in my Brooklyn Blackout Cupcakes (if you like chocolate, you must go try those) and this summer as the base of my Homemade Pudding Pops , but today it’s time to let the pudding be pudding.

And letting this pudding be the star of the show is never a bad thing. Deeply chocolatey and creamy, rich, and not too sweet, it’s a dessert to linger over. Just add good company, and you have the makings of a perfect evening.

How to Make Chocolate Pudding

Chocolate pudding really is one of the easiest desserts in existence. If you can hold a whisk, you can make this pudding. You just take said whisk and mix together sugar, cornstarch, salt, and milk over low heat until thickened, melt in some semisweet chocolate, drizzle in a few drops of vanilla, and refrigerate until set. About twelve minutes of active cooking time and two to three hours of agonizing waiting for your pudding to set, and you can grab a spoon, pile on the whipped cream, and enjoy.

Chocolate Pudding for Two Recipe Notes

• This pudding can be made with any percentage milk, but the higher-fat the milk, the richer (and tastier) the pudding will be. If you only have low-fat milk, you can replace a bit of it with heavy cream or half and half for a richer finished product.
• With homemade puddings, it’s completely normal to have some cornstarch lumps. You can strain them out with a fine-mesh strainer (if you don’t own one, they’re cheap on Amazon and also available in the baking aisle at most large grocery stores) or just leave them. They won’t hurt anything.
• To make chocolate shavings for topping, run a vegetable peeler down the short edge of a chocolate bar.

Looking for more chocolate desserts for two? Try these Chocolate Souffles for Two , Peanut Butter Brownies for Two , and Small-batch Chocolate Cupcakes .

Ingredients

Special Equipment

• ▢ Fine-mesh strainer

Chocolate Pudding for Two

• ▢ 1/4 cup ( 50g ) granulated sugar
• ▢ 2 tablespoons ( 15g ) cornstarch
• ▢ 1/8 teaspoon salt
• ▢ 1 1/2 cups milk whole preferred, but any percentage is fine
• ▢ 1/2 cup ( 3oz ) semisweet chocolate chopped (good-quality chocolate chips are fine)
• ▢ 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Toppings

• ▢ Whipped Cream optional
• ▢ Chocolate shavings optional

Instructions

• In a 2-quart (small) saucepan, whisk together sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Slowly whisk in milk, whisking out any lumps as they form.
• Heat over medium-low heat, whisking every other minute or so, until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, 8 to 12 minutes. If the mixture begins to simmer before thickened, turn down the heat slightly.
• Add chocolate and whisk until completely incorporated, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in vanilla.
• Strain pudding through a fine mesh strainer to remove any lumps. Pour into individual serving cups or single container and allow to cool at room temperature for at least 15 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap–if you are worried about pudding skin, place wrap directly on pudding surface–and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours, until set.
• Top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings if desired and enjoy!

Notes

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Classic shortbread thumbprint cookies with delicious homemade butterscotch filling.

Photos have been updated. Don’t worry, you’re in the right place. :)

I’m so excited to hit publish on my very first blog post today!

I wanted the inaugural post to be something that reflected the spirit of the blog to come, one that was representative of my passion for healthy recipes, eating your veggies, and branching out of your culinary comfort zone. But honestly, it’s December. It’s pretty much all cookies all the time coming out of my kitchen right now (stay tuned for salad in January).

So instead, I’m starting today with a classic cookie, my current obsession, shortbread thumbprint cookies with homemade butterscotch filling.

This is going to sound crazy, but I wasn’t a shortbread fan for most of my life. Beyond a few tried-and-true family recipes, we weren’t really bakers in my house growing up, nor were we cookie people.

I know I ate shortbread. I vaguely remember turning my nose up at those shiny blue tins of the stuff every year at Christmas, and I’d used it as a base in bars, but I didn’t understand the sweet and buttery goodness that was the homemade shortbread cookie until my sister baked up a batch for me.

My immediate reaction was, This is amazing. I never want to not be eating these. And then, Hey, World, what other wonders have you been holding out on me?!!!

Since that day, I’ve made this recipe waaaaay too many times in way too many variations (rolled in sugar, rolled in sprinkles, icing, no icing, chocolate drizzles, etc.) and have finally settled on my perfect variation: rolled in sanding sugar * or turbinado sugar *, turned into a thumbprint cookie and filled with butterscotch.

The butterscotch is the perfect, creamy complement to the buttery cookie and the sugar gives it a crunch to keep things interesting. These cookies are so good you’ll never want to let your shortbread go naked again!

Ingredients

Cookies

• ▢ 1 cup ( 8 oz) unsalted butter room temperature
• ▢ 1/2 cup ( 60 g) powdered sugar sifted
• ▢ 2 cups ( 280 g) all-purpose flour
• ▢ 1/8 teaspoon salt
• ▢ 1/4 cup sanding sugar optional

Butterscotch

• ▢ 2 tablespoons ( 1 oz) unsalted butter
• ▢ 1/4 cup ( 50 g) packed brown sugar
• ▢ 1/4 cup heavy cream
• ▢ 1/4 teaspoon salt
• ▢ 3/4 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions

Cookies

• In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Stir in flour and salt, mixing until just combined, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl.
• Cover and chill the dough in the refrigerator until it is firm enough to handle, about 15-30 minutes. You should be able to shape scoops of it into a ball without it being too sticky or cracking. If it is over-chilled and difficult to work with, leave it out on the counter for a few minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Using a tablespoon, scoop dough and roll into balls (slightly under 1 ounce each). If desired, roll balls in sanding sugar until completely covered. Place dough cookie sheet, 2 inches apart.
• Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. The cookies are done when their bottoms are lightly browned.
• As soon as they come out of the oven, use a round teaspoon or the back of a wooden spoon to create shallow wells in the center of each cookie. Be careful not to press too hard or you can cause the cookies to crack. Set aside.

Butterscotch

• Melt butter in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add brown sugar, salt, and cream. Stir to combine. Bring to a simmer and, stirring occasionally, cook on medium for 5 minutes.
• Remove pot from heat and stir in the vanilla. Use a teaspoon to spoon butterscotch into the thumbprints. Allow the butterscotch to cool slightly before serving.

Notes

Butterscotch Shortbread Thumbprint Cookies Nutritional Information Adapted From: In the Kitchen with Stefano Faita Butterscotch Filling Adapted From: Smitten Kitchen

Small-batch Instructions: This cookie recipe halves cleanly, just use a pinch of salt instead of 1/8 teaspoon. For the butterscotch, simmer for 4 minutes instead of 5 in a 1-quart pot, and use 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.

Original iPhone Photography, Circa 2015