Thursday, February 5, 2015

Cookies and Cream Icing

FIRST: I finished a book this week and sent it in to Love Inspired, so that's REASON TO CELEBRATE in author-world!!!!! And I'm working on a delightful novella, but that's not pertinent to today's post!!!! But it will be pertinent to a later post, no doubt!


The irony of the snowman on the soapstone stove is not lost on me. And it's mid-January... we had to let the stove burn out because we were having the old stairway (remember when I ripped up that old carpet last year??????) and a bedroom, and closet and second floor landing refinished....

Here's the old look:


This is from the top of the stairs, looking down.  And this is the bedroom floor:


And then this is after the sanding was complete, without a finish:

The bedroom floor:

 The closet floor:


The stairway. What an amazing difference, right????? Crazy fun!


And then these are the finished product after a coat of sealant and then two coats of polyurethane:



I have been waiting 25 years to unearth these 160-year-old floors. I'm over the moon!!! :)

But BACK TO FROSTING!!!!

This was to-die-for.

I do not use that term lightly.

Okay, that's a lie, I DO use it lightly, but in this case the terminology is not over-the-top! It's just plain, spankin' true!

I started simply by making a Duncan Hines dark chocolate cake. Instead of letting it cool naturally, I stuck it right in the freezer for 45 minutes when it was done baking. This negates that out-of-oven cooking time that tends to dry cake and leaves your cake SUPER MOIST and delicious.


I started out looking online for a cookies and cream icing. I knew what I wanted because I worked in a commercial bakery for several years until I'd sold my third book... by then I figured that if someone was crazy enough to buy my work, they'd probably be crazy enough to buy MORE OF MY WORK!!!!

So then I could go down to two jobs, not three! <<BONUS!!!!>>

Anyway, the first recipes I saw wouldn't fit the bill. They were simply buttercream icings with crushed cookies thrown in.



(Now I know what youse are doin', you're scratchin' your heads and wonderin' why that was WRONG.... but it's all in the consistency. I wanted the taste of buttercream and the consistency of "satin" frosting, the chemically induced, gas-inflated frosting used in commercial bakeries. People that LOVE, LOVE, LOVE satin icing actually like the chemical aftertaste, like the flavorings for some icee drinks/slushy thingies. But I digress (like usual)...

Cookies and Cream Icing  (adapted from recipe here: http://www.makinghomebase.com/cookies-and-cream-frosting)

1 cup butter, softened
3 cups confectioners/powdered sugar
2/3 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla

2 dozen crushed Oreo cookies (any flavor, depending on how you want your frosting to taste)

In large mixing bowl, whip butter until very soft and fluffy, several minutes.

Add confectioner's sugar one cup at a time, whipping butter and sugar together until light and fluffy each time. When all three cups have been added, pour in the whipping cream and the vanilla. Mix on low until liquid is incorporated, then beat on high until frosting is whipped smooth and light and holds a peak.

Crush the Oreos (You can use less, but I like a lot of cookie flavor in the frosting, like the commercial frosting makers use) into powdery pieces. Blend into frosting, use to frost cake, cupcakes or as a filling.



I cut the cake in half, then cut each half in half through the middle so I could have two layer cakes. I layerd the frosting between the layers and then topped the second layer with frosting too. A-stinkin'-mazing!!!!

I didn't go for aesthetics this time because kids and parents were coming in and they loved it without the beauty awards! In a perfect world I'd have swirled the frosting on and added an Orea in the center! But I promise, even in our non-perfect world, you will love this frosting!


13 comments:

  1. Love the floors. Love the cake. I'll take both please.

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  2. The cake is to die for. Seriously crazy good, and all due to that quick chill and the amazing frosting.

    AREN'T THE FLOORS SO PRETTY NOW???? It's like my thank-you gift to the house for being a nice house to raise kids in all these years. We have one more wood floor to do later this year, but it needs some carpentry work done first.... and then the floor finished. Piece by piece.

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  3. This sounds very decadent. Might have to try it for a birthday cake for an oreo addict friend. :-)

    And the floors are amazing....especially that they were in such good condition after all these years. I much prefer hardwood floors to carpeting simply because it's easier to keep clean...but I love how beauteous they are too. And yours are stupendous.

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    1. Well, they sure took a beating all those years. It's funny because when we moved into this house 25 years ago, there were carpets in all the big, original rooms. Wall-to-wall in one room and then a huge area rug in the other.

      And when we finally took them up, the floors had only been finished about 2.5 feet from the wall. The center was unfinished, so they only sealed and stained the part that showed outside the original carpets.

      And we found the evidence of old heat runs, old cold air returns, it's like looking through a century and a half looking glass. Really, if walls could talk... I'd love to listen to the stories they'd tell!

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  4. I am so thrilled for you. I remember when we pulled up our linoleum and put down wood floor in the kitchen. But you have the real deal!!!!

    I have all the ingredients to make the frosting, including gluten free chocolate cookies. And the grands are coming this weekend!!!!!!

    Happy day!

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    1. Julie, my kids had a party when we let them pull up the old linoleum tiles off the kitchen floor years ago. (I probably poisoned them with asbestos or something. EEEEK!!!!) We went through the tiles, then old sheet linoleum, then sub-flooring to find the red cedar planks in the kitchen. I love every knob, every crack and crevice and nail in those old floors. So fun!

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  5. First of all, after your description of that fluffy satin frosting from commercial bakeries, I know I have a reason to hate it. I always scrape it off!

    But this...I could do this. It would stay on the cake. People would eat it instead of throwing it away. This is fabulous! Thank you!

    Now the floors. Oh, wow. For so many years you've known that beauty was hidden under those layers of use and wear. And you brought it out. Lovely. Just lovely.

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    1. Oh, and congratulations on finishing the book! I don't care if it's your first book or your fiftieth, finishing a book is a cause for celebration :)

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    2. Jan, yes!!! You understand completely! I had redone a few of the floors but never had the time or money to do these upstairs... so getting them done was a dream come true. And it was way cheaper than carpeting or re-laying them, even with the cute (on sale, of course!!!!) carpets that are on their way from JC Penney's home sale.

      And some folks love that satin icing, but it's got so many weird, multi-syllable unpronouncable ingredients whereas this has butter, sugar and cream.... and COOKIES!!!!! I'm a huge fan!

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    3. AND THE BOOK!!!! It's still awaiting a title, it's the first in my Wedding Blessings series, and I just got approval and no revisions on this one, so that's a happy dance! I don't mind revising and I have to do it on at least half my books, but every now and again it's a pat on the head to know it hit all the right marks with my editors at Love Inspired, because no one knows their market better than those editors.

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    4. No revising...no revising.... I'm still trying to get my head around that one! :)

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  6. I want that frosting to eat plain!!! Oh, my. I love it already and must make it! the chocolate cake sounds amazing too. Thanks for sharing! I LOVE your beautiful floors too!

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  7. These floor are SO beautiful. When we we re looking for our first house, I would always try to peek at the floors underneath the carpet. The house we bought had 70 year old pine floors and I was SO excited to refurbish them. BUT before we bought it, the seller needed to do some repairs underneath, and instead of using the outside crawlspace, had the contractors, CUT A HOLE in the living room floor. So, we went to move in and found a huge 4X6 foot plywood patch in the middle of the living room.

    Cue the *loud, ugly sobbing*.

    I'm over it now, though.

    Mostly...

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