oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Oatmeal cookies can be tricky. At large gatherings, potlucks, or any catered events, there are usually oatmeal cookies. To be specific, there are usually oatmeal cookies with dark chunks in them. And it's always a risky game of discovering whether those chunks are raisins (bleh) or chocolate chips (YES).

halloween-inspired treats.

I'm not the scary Halloween type - I'm more the "let's make halloween-themed desserts and decorate the house with huge spiders, witches, ghosts, and pumpkins so I can pretend I can handle scary" person.

Hence these desserts came out a little cuter than planned. Nonetheless! I made a vow to make one themed dessert for every week of October, and I was able to mostly stick to it. Below are a couple examples that of what I made to celebrate Halloween.

orange cardamom meltaways.

It's interesting, how close my birthday coincides with the New Year. Two reasons to start afresh and finally implement those lifestyle changes.

Sleeping this late wasn't the plan .. I'm in bed with the glare of my laptop screen burning into my retinas, prolonging my descent into sleep even further. I took a Neuroendocrinology class where someone presented on the topic of how artificial light (from laptops, cell phones) is effective at preventing sleep, contributing to long-term problems, especially for my generation.

So much of our lives are affected by electronics. On the recent roadtrip I was in the passenger seat, and had so many electronics to handle - my phone, the driver's phone for Google Maps, Spotify, Snapchat, and my iPod for music. Oh, and my DSLR nestled carefully in my lap, being high maintenance as usual.

chocolate chip cookies III.

I just wrote a blogpost for a community service trip I'm going on soon, and doing so encouraged me to write a post here, too. Well, in addition to the fact that it's past 1 am .. I stayed up too late and am not sleepy now.

These delicious cookies were consumed partially by my brother within five minutes of their transfer from baking sheet to cooling rack his plate. The rest, I brought with me on a road trip with friends. I've been wanting to road trip for so long and it finally happened!

chocolate chip cookies II.

Oh baking. It's been so long.

This is embarrassing to admit, but from the moment I started beating butter with the sugars for these (albeit normal, but delicious) cookies, I literally became so happy. It was like somebody injected ... I don't know what drug makes you super relaxed (crack pie from momofuku??), but that, directly into my veins and instantly circulated throughout my body.

one-bowl toaster oven chocolate chip cookies.

Despite the heat, I still keep using the oven. One day when I had a hankering for something sweet, but didn't want to flood the house with waves of heat rolling out from the kitchen, I decided to use the toaster oven.

And lo and behold, one of the blogs I regularly follow had a recipe for toaster oven chocolate chip cookies! It was fate. I also hadn't made chocolate chip cookies in forever, and my brothers always appreciate a break from the random, creative, awesome sometimes unusual things I prefer to bake.

fortune cookies.

These fortune cookies are from forever ago. A time when I was busy applying for a Director position for RUDM 2014. Since I was applying for the Hospitality team, and wanted a somewhat creative presentation, I decided to make fortune cookies.

I feel like they're one of those things people never think to make from scratch. Like pancakes, waffles, and whipped cream. As is expected, the from-scratch version is always better .. INFINITELY better. I can barely have Reddi-wip anymore! I can't remember the last time I made pancakes from a mix .. well okay, I can't remember the last time I had pancakes.

Anyway, so these fortune cookies. I ended up eating a third of the ones I made .. as I was making them. They were that good.

toasted marshmallow squares.

Hey guys ... I'm forcing myself to break away from buffers, muscle contraction, and fluids momentarily to bring you these delicious squares I recently made.

I needed to bake. You know that point when food becomes an emergency more than a want? Yeah. I needed to bake today, or else I don't even know. 

I'm planning on doing crazy, outrageous things after my MCAT .. like shopping. Responding to my friend's texts. Talking to my parents. Baking something interesting. And maybe, just maybe, getting my nails done. 

chocolate chip whoopie pies, with espresso filling.

I reformatted the blog!! It was a lot of work .. had to code HTML and adjust tons of image sizes. I like the new look. It puts more attention on the pictures, which is what usually catches people's attention. Besides my highly entertaining writing, that is.

My hair's in a crazy bun right now. I have headphones in my ears, but no music on. The yellow light of the little bed clip-on lamp is casting dramatic shadows on my hands, emphasizing my newly acquired tan (50 minutes outside is all I need) and sculpting crevices, making everything more angular. It's 11:55 pm and although that's not particularly late, I'm questioning why I'm up.

I feel like the novel I've been reading is influencing my writing a lil bit. Anyway, what I'm not questioning is my decision, an hour ago, to have another one of these whoopie pies. I'll tell you why.

homemade oreos, rose + peanut butter filled.

So I was eating turkey chili just now before I sat down at my laptop to start writing this post. Of course I got distracted and checked up on the food & fashion blogs I regularly read, all my email accounts (way too many), and tastespotting before finally arriving hurr.

Then I got back up to get my new favorite "chapstick" because my lips were simply parched, and I saw that I hadn't finished all my chili .. !!!

Best feeling. The same thing happened with these oreos. I'll explain.

cookie dough stuffed chocolate cupcakes, with cookie dough frosting.

I can't believe it's Tuesday! This week was supposed to be crazy filled with work. I haven't yet done said work ... which is probably an issue.

I did make these beautiful cupcakes as promised on Monday night, however.

rose cream hearts.

I just beat two worlds in KH1. What else have I done since being home?

Uh, made these beautiful cookies, duh. I adore custard. Custard anything .. crème caramel, egg tarts, bread pudding, the filling of cream horns, eclairs, cream puffs, and lobster tails (aka - sflogliatelle). Look at this beautiful picture of a lobster tail dissection I randomly found. I swoon.

I could continue, but you get the point. And I realized that despite my love of custard, I barely have any custard things on here. So here is one. These rose cream hearts are light delicate cookies which can be cut into any shape (I did hearts), and in-between is sandwiched a filling. I made my filling rose-flavored, with zero food coloring, because I am also obsessed with rose anything, but you can easily make them regular custard-flavored or vanilla.

cutout cookies.

It was hard not putting an exclamation after the name in the title - these cookies are so attractive!

I almost had a heart attack when my mom told me she'd given away all our Christmas cookie cutters, as I was rolling out this dough and ready to bake up some Winnie the Poohs dressed up as Santa ... #firstworldproblems. I survived, you'll be glad to hear.

spiced sweet potato cookies - rum-soaked raisins optional.

Yay for pictures! I took enough this time. These interesting cookies were definitely worth it.

tell me about: Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate Cookie Mix!

I am home. That means I'll probably go crazy making things, now that my stress has significantly decreased and I actually have some time. What a concept!

perfect golden colour. 

However, I eased into baking one morning by making cookies using a mix that I had seen sitting around our house for far too long. It originally was on this shelf that was just too high for me to reach, which was enough resistance to prevent me from making them. But then I came home and my mom had moved them down to the countertop. Ahh, much better.

chocolate chip cookies.

chewy, but slightly crisp on the edges. fat & thick, with gooey chocolate chips. the non-chocolate chip portions must also taste excellent. or else everything is ruined. EVERYTHING. non-uniform shapes. craggy edges & tops with ridges. almost slightly underbaked middle.

My ideal chocolate chip cookie. 

Okay, now that you know what I like (I have briefly gone over this before), I hope you can decide whether you want to follow this recipe or not. Of course you can continue to read my babblings, but if you are a die-hard lover of those thin, crispy chocolate chip cookies ... or cakey ones that are really puffy ... this is not the place where you will find your perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe.

"orange velvet" whoopie pies.

Hello lovelies. How was this past weekend for you? Good, hopefully?

I traveled a lot this past weekend, but the weekend before, I stayed closer to home. It was a pretty busy three days. Friday was more relaxing than Saturday and Sunday, though. I went over a friend's house to meet my three other friends. We all brought food & scrolled through the On Demand movies on IO for like ten minutes because the cursor was moving soooo slow. And eventually decided on watching No Strings Attached.

Progression of the night? Read on.

special k cereal cookies.

Back in February, one of my suitemates did the Special K challenge. For two weeks, she consumed mainly Special K products & tried to eat well on the one free meal she had. She was determined, despite the remaining four of us who, like terrible people, tried to sway her from her diet. She was strong and stuck through with it, ignoring us. However, at the end of the two weeks, she could not bear to look at, nonetheless eat, another Special K product again.

And that was how I came to find this beauty on my desk at the end of school.

chocolate chip cookie cake, with chocolate frosting.

I love birthdays! Because birthdays need cake. And they provide an easy excuse to bake.

I also love those cookie cakes you can get at, for example, Shoprite. They're alway so attractive looking and so darn tasty.