Tuesday, September 07, 2010

TWD—Peanut Butter Crisscrosses and Parker’s 9th Birthday

I do find it amazing how quickly the weeks go by from Tuesday to Tuesday.  Here we are again with another recipe from Dorie Greenspan as we bake our way through Baking From My Home to Yours in our Tuesday's With Dorie group.  This week’s recipe was chosen by Jasmine from Jasmine Cuisine.  She chose Peanut Butter Crisscrosses (page 78). 

Good ol’ classic peanut butter cookies.  I made the full recipe, which makes a lot of cookies.  I only had creamy peanut butter, so that is what I used.  I left out the nutmeg.  And I didn’t have any peanuts to add to the dough.   I made a few dozen cookies with just the recipe (sans peanuts).

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These are good peanut butter cookies.  I only baked them for 10 minutes, not the suggested 12, because I wanted them to be more soft and chewy than crispy.  They are.

With some of the dough, I added about half a cup of semi sweet chocolate chips.  Almost nothing is better than chocolate and peanut butter.  I liked these better than the plain ones.

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With even more of the dough, I decided to add some chopped up Butterfinger Candy Bars.  It worked great with the recent Butterfinger Cookies I made and posted.  I love the texture Butterfingers give to cookies.

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These were my favorite of the cookies.

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Thank you Jasmine, great pick.  You can get the recipe for these peanut butter cookies on her blog.

Guess what, if you haven’t heard?  Dorie has a new cookbook out, Around My French Table.  A new cooking/baking group is starting (October 1).  You can join in, too.  Get a copy of Dorie’s book and cook/bake along with the group, French Friday's with Dorie!

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Parker had a birthday and turned 9 years old.  I made him a special breakfast that he likes—Banana/Nutella Crepes.

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Taylor made him a birthday crown.

We all went miniature golfing as a family on Monday for Parker’s birthday.  Since it was Labor Day, it was super crowded and quite the fun time golfing with Sam hitting the ball all crazy and not waiting his turn, but all in all, it was fun.  Later in the evening, after making a steak dinner (Parker LOVES A-1 Steak Sauce!), Parker opened his presents and we had cake and ice cream. 

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I’m loving all these fairly normal, cute, smiley pictures of Parker, since almost always usually goofy in pictures.

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Oh well, it couldn’t last forever.  ;)

For Parker’s big gift, which is what he really wanted, we sent him on a little compass driven scavenger hunt.  Kevin had placed little notes hidden outside with different directions on them and Parker had to use a compass to get to each one, with the final one being under the deck where his new skateboard, helmet and pads were hiding.  It turned out really well.

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Almost there.

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Parker decided he wanted banana cake after he really liked the Banana Caramel Cake I recently made.  So I made Dorie’s Lots of Ways Banana Cake.  I made it pretty plain-no nuts, no coconut, just bananas.  I put a layer of caramel ice cream topping in between the two cake layers.  And I made a Caramel Frosting recipe from Paula Deen that I found on Food Network’s website.  The frosting set up super fast and wasn’t creamy like I wanted it, but it actually tasted pretty good.

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Kevin even ate a slice of cake, including the frosting.  He later said it was because it was smothered with chocolate ice cream.

Happy Birthday, Parker!  We love you and are happy you are part of our family!  I love the way you always enjoy life and make the most of everything you do!

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32 comments:

Deb said...

Happy Birthday to Parker! What a lucky boy to have such creative parents. That banana cake looked so good wish I lived closer so I could have a piece.

chocolatechic said...

Happy Birthday to your little man.


And Butterfingers in the cookies...you are brilliant!

Anne said...

Happy birthday to Parker! Wow, your boys are looking big! Why do kids insist on growing? :) His cake looks so yummy with the caramel frosting and I need to try the butterfinger cookies- yum!

Plain Chicken said...

Happy Birthday Parker!

The cookies look great and the birthday party looks like a fun time too!

Madam Chow said...

What great pics of your family! And as for the cookies, the Butterfinger edition made me drool. Literally.

Jaime said...

great idea to add the choc chips! i'll have to remember that next time

happy birthday parker!

Stephanie said...

You are a baking machine!

Happy birthday Parker!

Katy said...

Your cookies look great, all of them!! Happy Birthday to Parker -- looks like lots of birthday fun!

Anonymous said...

The Butterfinger version looks so good! I need to start putting candy into cookies. It looks like Parker had a really great 9th birthday!

Paula said...

I agree with Jilbert. Those butterfinger cookies look fantastic.

Happy Birthday to Parker. We used to have scavenger hunts for my boys too but never used a compass. Maybe we can do that with my grandson some day.

Gloria - The Ginger Snap Girl said...

Butterfinger peanut butter cookies sounds pretty genious! They look awesome!

Tia said...

one word: WOW
happy birthday Parker!

Megan said...

Nine? He's 9? When did that happen? :)

Great photos of the cookies and I LOVE the cake you made. So fancy looking! And the fact that Kevin ate a piece just goes to show how great it was!

Emily said...

Happy Birthday Parker!

The scavenger hunt looks like it was a lot of fun. What a good idea!

The banana cake looks awesome. Oh, and I want some of those Butterfinger peanut butter cookies as well.

natalia said...

Ciao Katrina ! I love your Parker's teethless smile ! Happy birthday to him !! I love all your pb cookies versions !!

megan said...

How fun for parker to find his present in a scavenger hunt! He loks like he had a terrific day! The cake looks awesome and I can only imagine banana cake with chocolate ice cream would be "sin"sational! I also love the different vatieties of cookies. Very clever indeed!

Flourchild said...

Grat Birthday pictures, love his hat! All of your goodies look great as usual! I love your cookies too. I think the butterfinger idea is an excellent idea! I can see why they are your favorite!!

Valerie Gamine said...

Wow! What a delicious looking cake! Happy belated Birthday to your son. :)

I wish I had thought of adding Butterfingers to the cookies, they look amazing!

Shandy said...

What a fun birthday party! The compass scavenger hunt for the big birthday present was a brilliant idea. You could see his mind heavy at work in your pictures. I LOVE the banana birthday cake, all three of your peanutbutter cookie versions and now I am thinking I will rebake the peanutbutter cookies to try out the Butterfinger variation. Hubby loves Butterfinger but rarely will eat the candy bar itself. LOVE all the photos too!

Beth said...

What a great post! I loved all the photos including the "goofy" one. And there is nothing more fun than birthday scavenger hunts. My girls are teenagers and we still have them!

Jasmine said...

Great cookies! I love the butterfingers version, it looks so delicious. Happy birthday to your big boy! Thanks for baking with me this week.

spike. said...

looks like a fun birthday! I need to pick up some butterfingers next time I'm at the store...

Eliana said...

Love your variations on this oh so delicous peanut butter cookie :)

Liz said...

That's sweet. Happy birthday to Parker! I love the scavenger hunt idea, although since I have no idea how to work a compass I probably would have given up after about 2 minutes. But what a fun plan. :) And the banana/caramel cake sounds awesome!

Unknown said...

Happy Birthday to Parker!! Looks like you guys had a lot of fun! And great ideas on the cookies!

Rachel said...

Butterfinger? OMG I need to make these again now and try that out! Happy Birthday to Parker!

Jeannette said...

adding butterfingers was the perfect idea!! its been years since i had a butterfinger!!

Kayte said...

Happy Birthday, Parker! Last year to be in single digits!! What cute photos of it all, thanks for sharing the big day with us, it was fun! Your cookies look amazing...all those variations and you got the little crisscrosses to show...mine sort of didn't. But the cookies were really good...and not a drop of chocolate in mine!!

Lisa said...

I will definitely have to try the Butterfinger version of the cookies. By the way, I absolutely love reading your blog posts, I look forward to them every week. Keep up the good work.

TeaLady said...

Happy birthday Parker. Glad you had a gret day!!

I love the idea of butterfingers in the cookies. That is definitely on my to try list. And we love PB cookies so make them often.

Kerstin said...

Happy Birthday Parker!! Glad you had such a fun celebration :)

Mimi said...

Happy birthday Parker!
Your boys are getting so grown up! I need to try the butter finger version of this recipe. It looks terrific.
btw I saw Jon Schmidt when he was here, he is really and awesome performer.
Mimi