Living the Mad Dash

Had I known that carrot cake and cookies as one would be so right, I would’ve been making these a long time ago. Read on if you want to know more about the cookie that almost got away from you…

As usual, the idea for this recipe was born out of a desire to get my kids to intake some kind of vegetable into their stomachs (yes, I’m aware that this is still a cookie). The ingredients aren’t fancy.

I had one of my baking sidekicks around to ‘help’ out although, really, she was just using me for my ingredients.

The result is a very moist, almost cake-like cookie that still has that chewiness of an oatmeal cookie. They aren’t super sweet- in fact, I’d say they are juuuust sweet enough. Add the cream cheese icing and then wow. WOW.

Carrot Cake Cookies

1&1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) softened butter

1 cup dark brown sugar (loose, not packed)

2 eggs (at room temperature)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1&½ cups of all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1&½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

3 cups of old fashioned rolled oats

For carrots:

1&½ cups shredded carrots

1 tablespoon maple syrup

½ teaspoon vanilla

For icing:

4oz of softened cream cheese (softened)

2 tablespoons softened butter

1 cup of powdered sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons milk

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Combine the carrots, maple syrup and vanilla in a bowl and allow the carrots to absorb the liquids. In a separate bowl, combine the measured flour, salt and baking soda, set aside. Next, cream the butter and sugar together until well mixed on medium speed. Add the coconut oil. Add the cinnamon until just mixed in. Mix in the eggs. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture by adding it to the mixer by the heaping spoonful, allowing it a chance to disappear into the dough before adding more. Batter will look like this:

Add the oats in batches, letting them become one with the dough before adding more. Then add those carrots, liquids and all. At this point, you should be looking like this:

I scoop giant mounds of dough onto the sheet for baking, but THE SECRET is...you have to press down the middle of the mound so that you don’t have a wet-in-the-middle cookie, make the lowest point of the mound the center. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

For the ICING, cream the cheese butter together. Add in the vanilla. Then slowly add the powdered sugar. Watch this closely because you don’t want to make this too thick. I was looking for a near glaze for the cookie, so adding in the milk by the tablespoon got the right texture going. Once cookies are cooled, slather ‘em up with this sauce. Then grab a cookie. Sit down. Take a bite and close your eyes. You’ll need a moment to collect yourself.

Sidekick-approved. Enjoy!

Follow along for more inspiration on Instagram @livingthemaddash

Baking French yogurt cake with my bébé…

Ever since I read the book Bringing Up Bébé: One American Woman Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman I have been thinking about that damn yogurt cake that all the French kids eat (and help make) for their single snack of the day, or goûter. I’ve been thinking- this cake must be insanely good if it can make a kid wait patiently for their snack. AND they help bake it?? My imagination has been getting the best of me. Until now. I baked it with my 2 year old.

My children tend to approach baking tools and ingredients like they’ve just come out of a piñata: all hands touch everything, grab everything, and try to pocket or eat most things. Sooooo, we don’t bake together all the time. I tried this recipe out while I had just one child present (highly recommended).

I followed a googled recipe for “French yogurt cake,” choosing the one that included ‘simple’ in the title. The ingredients are indeed simple. It was a typical grab-fest with the little one. She really wanted to taste the raw eggs. But because there were so few steps in the recipe, I was able to stay ahead of those little hands (this made me happy).

In about 45 minutes total we had two warm little cakes out on the racks to cool.

The verdict: this cake was just…okay. It tasted like a cake, but not like a good cake. I would be sad if this is what I’d waited all afternoon for as my only snack. It was extremely basic. I don’t know that frosting would make it much more than that. I did end up adding some fresh fruit and whipped cream on the side for my second serving (hey, I wasn’t going to let even a basic cake go to waste). My older kid had one bite and was like, I’m good instead of asking for more.