My blog

Swig is a super yummy cookie and soda place in Utah. We found out about them through Bryce's sister, who managed at the Provo location for a while. They are known for their super dense sugar cookies, for which you can find hundreds of copycat recipes online. The thing is though, while the sugar cookies are great, the iced oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are THE BEST. So what the heck internet? Why are there no copycat recipes for those cookies??? Don't worry, I made one. Also all the other copycat Swig frosting recipes call for sour cream, but Swig's icing isn't refrigerated so I don't think that is right. I have my own icing recipe below. My copycat Swig Iced Oatmeal recipe differs from regular oatmeal cookies in a few ways: 1. Baking method. Swig cookies are dense and soft, kind of like eating cookie dough, but cooked, but not like a regular cookie...it's hard to describe. I will outline my method in detail below. 2. No baking soda, and just a hint of baking po...

Petits Fours This Saturday was a really special day! My niece, Maddy, got baptized ! Children who are born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, (Mormons) don't get baptized and become official members until they are 8 years old. This is because we don't believe that children begin to be accountable for their choices until this age, as I mentioned before . Maddy is a fun girl who likes pretty things, animals, and wrestling with her dog. I thought petits fours would be a fun treat for after the baptism. I had never made them before but I followed the directions on this site . They were fairly easy*, although I didn't realize that her pan was smaller than a normal full jellyroll pan, so I ended up having to make two cakes and a filling to put between them, otherwise they would have been "trop courte fours" . (I just made that up, is it a thing? I am deciding it is a thing.) Also the poured fondant was not extremely difficult*, but you definitely have...

Yesterday was Haley's Birthday I tried to get a picture of her with the cake, and I got a lot of them, but Haley has some crazy ability to blink every single time you snap a picture, so her eyes are not open in any of them: blink Kind of blink blink blink blink blink Blink! Whatever. Here is the cake from the inside! It was zebra! Sara told me about it and I used the technique on this website. It was a surprise, so Haley didn't know that she color coordinated her dress with the cake. Too bad I didn't get a picture with her eyes open! Or did I??? Happy birthday Haley!

Bakery Bread I posted a recipe for french bread a few months ago and called it the "best bread" , but I now need to recant that a little bit. I have found a new recipe and new method for making bread that blows any earlier attempts out of the water. It is called "No-Knead Dutch Oven Bread". It is very little work, but it needs to sit overnight, also not surprisingly, you need a dutch oven or heavy-duty pot to make it. I used the recipe on this site. It is a simple recipe: 1/4 tsp active dry yeast 1 1/2 cups warm water 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting. You may use white, whole wheat or a combination of the two. 1 1/2 tsp salt Cornmeal, flour, or wheat bran for dusting I was skeptical that this could work, but it worked so well! First you combine the water and yeast. You will probably feel skeptical about what a paltry bit of yeast 1/4 tsp is, but just go with it. Then you mix in the flour and salt. Your dough will look hideous and shaggy, you might de...

Secret Recipe Ice cream sundaes are great but there is a problem. This is the proportions of the sundae: These are the proportions that you really want though: But you can't have that much chocolately goodness without looking like a greedy glutton. Never fear though, Bryce's mom discovered the solution to the problem. You see: If you swap hot fudge with chocolate pudding suddenly it is socially acceptable to have the correct ratio of warm chocolate and chilly cream. I know, she's a genius. Internet, you're welcome.

Berliner I know everyone knows that Kennedy said "Ich bin ein Berliner" and it is hilarious because that is a jelly doughnut. It is not actually that funny though because a Berliner is also a non-doughnut-human from Berlin. Anways have you ever eaten one? (The doughnut, not the human, though if you have eaten a human Berliner please tell us about it in the comments.) They are not very difficult to make at home, (again, we are talking doughnuts here, human Berliner are pretty difficult to make at home unless your home is in Berlin, in which case it will take about 9 months to make one) so if you want to you can! I used this recipe and it was fabulous! Of course I decided to make my Berliner (also known as Krapfen) into little heart shapes: Also of course, I fried mine in lard. I know, lard is a bad word. (We will talk about ugly words tomorrow.) Here's the thing though: Lard is delicious. All the delicious bread items you have eaten are delicious because of lard. Don...

Outrageous Dessert Imagine there is a little lump of cookie dough, just sitting there, when suddenly it is eaten by a wild cinnamon roll! Now the cinnamon roll is feeling pretty smug, all full of cookie, so it doesn't realize a huge mass of glaze is coming to swallow it up. That is what this dessert is. First make some cookie dough. I was planning on making miniature cinnamon rolls to I made my dough a little but thin and used mini chips. Then you make cinnamon rolls. This is my favorite recipe for cinnamon rolls . I rolled the dough thin, again for cinni-mini purposes. Then you slather the whole thing with butter. Don't skimp on the butter. If a bunch of butter makes you squirmy you should reconsider some of your life choices, mainly the one where you chose to make chocolate-chip-cookie-dough -stuffed cinnamon rolls. Next comes cinnamon and sugar. And then an army of little cookie dough balls. Roll it all up and use a piece of floss to slice them. Be warned, when you cook them...

Pioneer Day Cake Yesterday was Pioneer Day in Utah (ok, Sunday was Pioneer Day, but that is the Sabbath so we celebrated on Monday instead). It is a state holiday to commemorate the original founders of the state. If you wanted to appreciate pioneers you might get dysentery and then spend the day walking barefoot in the desert for miles and miles hauling all of your possessions in a rickety wooden wagon, then finish it up by eating a meager helping of gruel cooked over a fire of burning ox poop; but in Utah we just have a flags in our front yards, barbecues, and fireworks. This is great, because first of all we don't have to hunt for ox-poos, and second of all it is basically a second fourth of July! I am glad about that because I stumbled across the idea for this cake on July 5th and I didn't want to wait a whole year to make it. You need two white cake mixes. Dye one of the rounds red, one blue, and leave one white (You will have an extra round, you can dye that whatever col...