Cooking as healing

My husband and I have suffered the worst tragedy of all time:  we lost our twins at 19 weeks on October 17, 2011.  Caroline and Ryan were beautiful and perfect babies, we just have no idea what happened.  After days of either not getting out of bed or off the couch, I decided to revisit my favorite past time of cooking.  I'm starting slowly though.  Easy dinners for us and then I'll venture out and try new recipes and hopefully develop new ones in my head (once my creativity returns that is).  When I was pregnant, I hated cooking- the smells and various tastes did nothing for me.  Now, however, my taste buds and sense of smell has come back and I might as well use them.
I craved chocolate chip cookie dough when I was pregnant, but you can't eat it raw due to the raw eggs in the batter.  So, I decided to make chocolate chip cookie bars twice within 3 days (and I ate plenty of the batter too).  We got bored with the cookies though, so I put them in the freezer.  I was trying to decide what to do with them since they can't be in the freezer forever and frozen cookies aren't good.  Finally, I created a new recipe:  chocolate chip cookie balls.
I have made cake balls in the past which consist of crumbling cake into frosting, making balls, and covering them in chocolate.  However, I prefer cookies over cake, so why not try it this way?  I crumbled up the cookies into homemade white icing, rolled them into balls, froze them, and dipped them into melted semi sweet chocolate.  The results were wonderful.  While it is a very sweet treat, they are perfect little mouthfuls that leave you satisfied with only 1 or 2. 
I also noticed something as I've been cooking and baking.  I feel a little bit better.  I daydream while I'm cooking and pretend that I'm making these recipes for my twins.  I imagine what it would be like to have my children around me while stirring, sifting, or dipping.  For a moment, I feel happy and my dreams are a reality with me being a mother and teaching my children how to cook.  Reality always come back though and I'm back in the real world again.  However, even if I only feel these joyful moments for a short time, cooking has a healing power that I never knew existed.  I guess it's my own private therapy. 
So, from here on out, my recipes and love of cooking and baking is dedicated to my beautiful twins, Caroline and Ryan, who I know are watching me and maybe even tasting what I'm creating.  I love and miss you both.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Balls

For the cookies- (you can use your favorite cookie recipe or follow this one)
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature (to make this lighter, you can use 1 stick of butter with 1/2 cup unsweetened plain applesauce.  The cookies are a little cakey, but still good)
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 bags semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 and grease 9x13 glass pan
Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl and set aside
Beat the butter and both sugars at medium high speed until light and fluffy
Add the eggs one at a time until incorporated
Add the vanilla
Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix only until incorporated- do not overmix!
Stir in chocolate chips
Spread the batter evenly into the pan and cook until cookies have set- about 25-35 min.- check often
Let cookies cool completely

Frosting- (you can use homemade or canned- homemade is always better.  This one is my grandma's recipe that my mom also uses.  It's easy, light, and flavorful)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2-3 tablespoons of milk (add more if needed)
2-3 cups powdered sugar (add more if needed)
pinch of salt

Mix above ingredients and add more milk and/or powdered sugar until a good spreading consistency is reached (taste for vanilla flavor too)

Once the cookies have cooled, crumble cookies into the bowl with the frosting and mix until everything has frosting on it
Using a tablespoon (or I use an ice cream scoop) scoop out balls of cookie and frosting and place on parchment lined baking sheets
Freeze balls until hardened (about an hour or more)

Once frozen, melt semi sweet chocolate- I'm not sure how much exactly, but it takes a lot of chocolate to cover all of the balls
Dip cookie balls into the chocolate, making sure every surface is covered by chocolate
Place them back on the parchment paper- you can also add sprinkles or colored sugar on them if you want
Once all of them dipped in the chocolate, place in refrigerator until hardened

Enjoy and as my old boss says, "Food and cooking make everything better."  I couldn't agree more.

Baby cake

I work a couple days a week at a doctor's office that happens to have an ultrasound machine and a wonderful tech willing to peek at my twins when I'm there.  She said that she can usually tell the sex by 16 weeks.  Last week I was 16 weeks, so I dashed right to her office.  However, since my husband wasn't with me, I didn't think it was fair to find out the sexes without him.  We remembered an article in Food Network magazine titled "Baby Cakes" that explained some couples find out the sex in a cake.  If the baby is a boy, the cake is dyed blue and if the baby is a girl, the cake is dyed pink.  It is covered in thick icing and when the couple cuts into the cake, the sex is revealed.  I loved this idea and knew I wanted to find the sexes out this way.
Instead of a bakery though, I asked my mom to make the cake since she's a better baker and I knew the cakes would be tasty.  Here's how the day unfolded:  I went to work, got my ultrasound, the tech wrote the sexes down on a piece of paper and sealed it in an envelope.  My mom took it and went home to make the cake.  Since we're having twins, she made a 2 layer cake and each layer would be dyed a different color (or the same color, depending on what we have).  I, meanwhile, continued to work and imagined what the sexes would be.  Finally, work ended and my husband drove to my parent's house for the big revealing.  We cut into the cake and the first layer was blue (boy!!) and the second layer was pink (girl!!).  I think I screamed, my husband shouted "I knew it!", my dad laughed, and my mom said "That was the hardest secret I have ever kept!" 
I thought this was an amazing way to find the sexes of our twins out.  Instead of being in a doctor's office where the atmosphere is very formal, we were relaxed at home and celebrated right away with cake.  Granted, the wait was terrible, but once we cut into the cake the joy and excitement was something I'll never forget. 
Following are pictures of the cake and the recipe.  I gave my mom my recipe for easy white cake and it's one of favorites.  The crumb is dense, but light.  It has loads of flavor (most white cakes taste like nothing) and if you dye your cake, add the coloring after you have separated the batter into the pans. 

My recipe for white cake:
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk
6 XL egg whites
4 tablespoon sour cream
2-3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
2 cups sugar

Preheat the oven to 350
Sift flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside
In another bowl (or measuring cup) combine milk, egg whites, sour cream, and vanilla
Whisk together until sour cream is incorporated and there's no lumps
Using an electric or hand held mixture, cream butter and sugar at least 5 minutes, until light and fluffy
Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix until incorporated
Add 1/2 of the wet mixture
Add another 1/3 of the flour mixture
Add last 1/2 of the wet mixture
Add last 1/3 of the flour and mix until just combined (do not overmix!)

Divide the batter into 2 9 inch greased and floured pans (line the bottoms with parchment paper too)
Bake until a toothpick comes out clean 40-50 min. (depending on your oven- check often so they don't burn)
Set pans on a cooling rack and cook cake in pans for 10 min.
Run a knife around the edges and carefully take cake out of the pans
Cool on cooling rack until completely cooled and ice with your favorite frosting