Heavenly cookies....

I think I just found the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe!! Actually, it's a recipe for peppermint chocolate chip cookies and they are DELICIOUS!

Now, I'm not a big cook, but I love to bake. Cookies, cupcakes, cakes, brownies, anything sweet, I'll (try to) do it. I LOVE sugar and chocolate. Sometimes, I even dream about desserts and brownies...

Seriously. What would this world be without chocolate and sugar?! I don't even want to think about it.

I stumbled upon this recipe from Une Gamine dans la Cuisine last week and I just had to try it!

They have a soft, chewy-gooey melty chocolate center with a light thin crisp around the edges.

I made a batch (approximately 20 cookies) and made half of them super fat or "puffy" and the other hald thinner, so that my "guests" can pick which kind they like better.

I love the hint of mint and it's a perfect twist to the good ol' chocolate chip cookie.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups of all purpose flour
• ½ tsp. of salt
• ¼ tsp. of baking soda
• ½ cup of butter at room temperature
• ½ cup of tightly packed light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup of granulated sugar
• ¼ tsp. of peppermint extract
• 1 egg
  
• 1 cup of chopped dark chocolate.

Method:

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In larger bowl, beat the butter and sugars togerther on medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes). On low speed, slowly add the beaten egg and peppermint extract. Beat to combine, scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the flour mixture and beat just until there are no more streaks of flour. Stir the chopped dark chocolate by hand. Cover and refrigerate for an hour. (You do not have to chill the dough if you are in a hurry)

Preheat the oven to 375F. Line the baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop out well rounded tablespoonfuls of the dough and roll them into balls. Leave about 2 inches between each ball. Bake for 8-9 minutes. If you prefer crispier cookies, increase the baking time by 1-2 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before removing.


The recipe calls for baking soda, but I used baking powder instead and it was still as delicious as ever! I know substituting baking soda for baking powder can change the texture but I thought the final result was pretty good.

Also, I heard that using mint extract tastes better than with peppermint extract (I used mint and peppermint extract, since that's the only type I could find). I guess you could also substitute the mint/peppermint extract with vanilla. It all depends on what you have and prefer.

These cookies were soo good! I think you should all bake a batch!
Enjoy!

Gifts, Santa and my holiday mani

Hi all! I hope you all had a joyful holiday and got all that you asked Santa for!

Family+Gifts+Food+Eat+Wine+Pictures+Eat+Family+Food+Eat+Champagne+Eat+Eat+Beer pretty much sums up my entire weekend. It seems like every time there's a family reunion, all we do is eat and drink. We're a bunch of alcoholic pigs, I tell ya!

I wasn't able to do a nice holiday mani like I wanted, since I had to wrapped presents for my mom and dad. When I agreed to do it, I wasn't expecting that many gifts to wrap...

However, I was able to put on GOSH Silver, a beautiful silver foil.



Also, I just baked so deliiiiiicious cookies! That'll be in a future post..

Orly Spring 2010 Bloom Collection

Look at what the mailman left for me this morning!!!

I got my package from TransDesign: the complete Orly Spring 2010 Bloom Collection! I was so excited, I hadn't bought nail polish in a while and I was aching to get my fix.

Needless to say, I got to swatching right away. Quick swatches and comparison ahead..

Let's start with my least favorite from this collection.

Ginger Lily - burnt orange shimmer. I actually like this color but it doesn't "excited" me.


Blushing Bud - Hot Pink creme. I don't normally like pink-or hot pink- but this one is beautiful. The picture is not really color accurate: it's a tad darker in real life.


Thorned Rose - A dark raspberry creme.


Wild Wisteria - blurple creme. This one is gorgeous. You can see it's purple in all lighting, not black. The first picture is to show you the purple base.


Pure Petunia - Violet creme. Very pretty.


Wandering Wine - gorgeous green creme. This has got to be my favorite from this collection! It's absolutely beautiful!


And now for the comparisons

Pinkie and Middle: Orly Enchanted Forest
Ring and Index: Wandering Wine
Wandering Wine is greener, lighter and less muted. In my opinion, between these 2, Wandering wine is the winner!


Index and Ring: Orly Pure Petunia
Middle: OPI Pamplona Purple
Pinkie: $OPI Domestic Goddess Matte
Pamplona Purple and Pure Petunia is pretty similar, the latter is more pinkish and is lighter in color.


Index: RBL Atame
Middle and Pinkie: Orly Thorned Rose
Ring: Essie Wicked
Thorned Rose has a hint of pink, whereas Atame and Wicked are more red.


Pink and Middle: Zoya Pinta
Index and Ring: Orly Wild Wisteria
In my book, these two are dupes. There might be some slight differences, but you can't really see them unless you really look into it. To be honest, I almost got confused about which color was on which finger.


Overall, I really like this collection. The colors are gorgeous, not necessarily unique, but I still love them all. It seems like the whole collection just goes really well together, all the colors "belong there" and it feels complete. Application was effortless, the formula was very pigmented and the consistency was remarquable. It was perfect: not too thick, but not runny either. Most of the swatches required only 2 coats, except for Thorned Rose, which took 3 coats.

I don't know what was the official launch date for this collection, but it is now avaible on TransDesign and Head2Toe beauty

Nu Nails

I emailed Nubar about the color differences between my 2 Nu Nails bottles Sunday and got their response today! Yay for quick customer service! Here's what the email says:

"Dear Xuan-An,

The color difference that you noticed has nothing to do with effect or performance; it is the same formula, it is just that we tried improving the product to make it more appealing to our clientele, and hence the different color.
If I can help you in any other way please let me know."

I actually like the white color more... but whatever floats their boat ;)

Nubar Avant-Garde

Happy Monday!

I hope you all had a great weekend!

I needed to do a quick manicure before going shopping, so I grabbed a bottle of matte nail polish by Nubar. This one is called Avant-Garde, from the Fall 2009 Modern Matte Collection. It's a beautiful burgundy shimmer.


This matte polish was easy to apply and dried fairly quickly, not as quick as OPIs, but I prefer Nubar, since it was easier to control and allowed room for error.

OPI Russian Navy Matte

Happy Saturday!! The weekend is finally here, and Christmas is less than a week away!!

I resisted pulling out another purple polish from my stash and so closed my eyes and randomly pulled out OPI Russian Navy Matte instead. I don't have the original to compare it to, but I can tell you it lacks the pretty shimmer the original has. As for most matte nail polish, this is a bit thicked and dried fairly quickly.

A real matte navy:

I thought it missed a little "umph" so proceeded to add a coat of Nfu Oh 50, a beautiful flaky polish.



There you go!!! Much better!!!! These flakies always make plain, boring nail polish so much more exciting!

Enjoy your weekend!

Winter-y Manicure

So I promised something different and here it is!!!

It didn't turn out as great as I had hoped. It looked so much better in my head!

I used Orly Cashmere Cardigan as a base then stamped the snow flake from Konad plate M20 in white, silver and gold. Here's the final result:

Right Hand
Left Hand

Now I think I'm ready to face to cold weather! :)
Have a good day!