Monday, March 7, 2011

Red Velvet Cookies

Need I say more?


There has been this red velvet fad lately, and I saw it fit to attempt this crowd-favorite recipe. Red velvet cake, red velvet cupcakes, red velvet hot chocolate (from The Coffee Bean), and now... red velvet cookies.

To be quite honest, this isn't my favorite type of flavor for cake, but there comes a time when we stop baking for ourselves & start making food for others... or, simply have an audience that would be willing to buy tickets to your performance.

It took me a while to make an attempt in baking these just because it was such a foreign flavor to me. I also thought that I was too much of a novice in cooking to even try. Fortunately, they're doable! So, dear reader, here's a small encouragement for you: if I can do them, trust me, you can too.


RED VELVET COOKIES

Ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup dark chocolate squares
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened (1/2 cup CRISCO Shortening)
- 1/3 cup brown sugar (2 tbsp + 2 tsp SPLENDA Brown Sugar)
- 1/3 cup white sugar (2 tbsp + 2 tsp SPLENDA Sugar Blend)
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp red food coloring
- 3/4 cup sour cream

For the cream cheese frosting:
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup cream cheese, whipped
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp + 1 tsp SPLENDA Sugar Blend

In a mid-sized bowl, I sifted together the flour, baking soda, & salt. In a larger bowl, I mixed together the shortening, brown sugar, white sugar & the egg until it was smooth. The oven was turned on to 350 degrees F.

The chocolate squares were placed in a ramekin & melted through the microwave-- stop! Through trial & error, this was a bad idea... I didn't feel like melting the chocolate through the stove (the long and proper way to melt chocolate), like I would with the brownies... so, I put the ramekin in the microwave & let it heat up for 30 seconds, and it ended up burning a few bits of chocolate. I only realized this when they popped up in my cookie batter later on. While harmless in tiny amounts, I manually took as much as I could out of the batter with a chopstick to prevent that bitter, burnt chocolate taste in the cookie.

Lesson learned.

In that large bowl of mixture, I added the melted chocolate, then the red food coloring... eventually, the sour cream & the dry ingredients.


I placed spoonfuls of batter on a baking sheet & let them bake for 10 minutes. I started using the timer on my iPhone to consistently bake all the cookies.

While those were sitting in the oven, I made the frosting-- putting together all the listed ingredients in a small bowl. I was down to the last few tablespoons of my SPLENDA Sugar Blend package, and it was enough for the frosting.


You'll know what to do afterwards.

So far, I haven't received poor feedback for the cookies-- I must be doing something right. I mean, I did pray for the cookies to turn out well... hehe.