Taylor's Birthday With LOTS of Pictures!

So it was Taylor's birthday last Sunday.  We celebrated.  He turned five!  I can't believe he's five year old.  In Tucson, Arizona, five years ago, also on a Sunday I was still 4 1/2 weeks from my due date.  Went to church after having strange, uneven contractions all night but feeling fine.  Then all throughout church the contractions were more evenly timed, they went from 5 minutes apart, to 3, to well, LABOR!  I never felt like the contractions were really strong and unbearable, so I kept telling myself and others that it still just must be false labor.  I kept convincing everyone I talked to at church that it couldn't have been real labor--4 1/2 weeks early.  I was convinced that after we got home, I'd just call my doctor and he'd reason me through it being false labor.   During the last hour of church, I sat through a meeting with the young women ages 12-13 and quietly had contractions that were probably barely 1 minute apart.  They were stronger now, but do you think I did anything?  No.  I just quietly breathed through it.  After that hour, I quickly went and found Kevin, told him that I thought we'd better GO!  So get this, I was pretty sure I was in labor now and we still drove the kids 20 minutes home to drop them off at some neighbors, then drove the 20 minutes back to the hospital.  I was breathing heavy through some very fast coming contractions, while Kevin sped through town yelling at "dumb" drivers.  Kevin was just SO sure I was going to give birth in the car, but I kept convincing him that I wouldn't.  (Although, I was really holding that baby in!) 

We made it to the hospital and Kevin parked in the emergency parking and ran to get me a wheelchair.  He took FOREVER getting back.  I swear it was like 10 minutes.  I had just started to get out of the car and walk in to the hospital myself when he finally came running over with a wheelchair, telling me that they couldn't find one in the ER.  Hello, you're an emergency room in a hospital--have some wheelchairs around people!  Anyway, longer story short, we got in there, I was dilated to a 9 while the nurses were frantically prepping me for labor.  I was trying to convince them that I did NOT care if the doctor was there for the delivery and they just kept trying to get me to wait and not push.  The doctor got there just in time and was trying to get his gown and booties on (again, I did NOT care about his precious clothes being protected).  I think our sweet little 6 pound Taylor Christian came out in just a few pushes with his little face in the wrong direction, which caused some good bruising all over his head and face. (And let me just say, Parker, our 7 year old was 9 lbs. 2 oz. and also came super fast with no time for drugs and I say 9 lbs, 6 lbs, it all hurt just the same to me!) 

I was so in shock that we had just had another baby and I was SO not prepared for him to be with us so soon, but I did not mind at all missing that last month of pregnancy!  Okay, okay, enough of that, back to the present--or as Taylor would want it, back to the presents! 

Weeks before his birthday, I'd kept asking him what he'd like to do for a party with friends.  All he would ever say is that he wanted to go play at a park with Joey and Aidan.  That's it.  Wow, if only all birthday parties were that simple.  So on Saturday we went to a park and played with his two friends, had cupcakes and goodie bags and called it good.  Thank you, Taylor, for such a wonderful, simple party idea!

 

Nope, that's not Taylor, that's Joey.  Taylor is the one hiding his face with his hand--which is does every time I point the camera in his directions!

There, gotcha Taylor!  There's Aidan passed out in the background.  I'm not sure what they were playing.

Having some goodies.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day, so in all the pictures, the guys are squinting.

On Sunday, we made doughnuts for breakfast.  The kids love dunking them in chocolate icing and adding sprinkles galore.  See Taylor?  Hiding again.  Stinker!

Later in the day I made a quick Crazy Cake and frosted it.  Taylor then got to decorate it with any and all sprinkles and toppings I had.  He really wanted some of those hard sugar candy decorations that you peel off that cardboard paper and some of the paper usually stick.  All I had was some old Valentine hearts.  He insisted that they were on the cake.  The cake looked great and I (obviously) didn't help at all.  Taylor really enjoyed doing it and having all say in what went on top.

Hey, got a good picture of T here!

The finished cake.  It's hard to tell, but there are some little gingerbread men sprinkles, Christmas trees, snow, Valentine hearts and some orange and black Halloween sprinkles.  Fun!

We made pizza for dinner.  Everyone got to make their own.  I'd been asking Taylor (the world's pickiest eater right now), if he could have anything in the world for dinner what he'd like to have and he said, "nothing."  I convinced him that we'd need to eat dinner that night and would he like it if we made pizza where everyone could make their own.  He replied, "Yes, let's make pizza.  I want to make one.  But I'm not going to eat it."  I didn't take any photos, but we did all make our own pizzas. (A tradition that was often the birthday dinner at my house growing up.)  I think Taylor may have actually taken a few bites of his!

We then opened presents.  Look at this stack!  Lucky!  Really, for months I'd been buying things on clearance (love Target!) that I'd thought Taylor would like and that would keep him busy while the boys are still at school and Sam is napping.  I did well and Taylor loves all his gifts.

Sorry about so many pictures.  I just love all these cute pictures of Taylor.

Whew!  Time for cake!  Thinking over the list of wishes.

I actually missed the blowing-out-the-candle picture, so Taylor actually posed for this one.

All the talk about the cake and they HAD to have ice cream with it and here's what it came down to--Taylor's bowl on the left--he didn't want any!  None.  This was his birthday.  No pizza, no cake either.  How does this kid survive?  Parker's bowl in the middle.  He's all talk about what and how much he can eat.  He wants to be able to eat as much as Scott, but never does.  He at the ice cream, but not the cake.  Scott ate most of his.  Then there's my Sammie.

He sat there long after the boys had finished and ate every drop that was in his bowl.  There's my boy!  ;)

Happy Birthday, 5 year old, T!  We love you!

I found this cute candy kit and thought the boys would like it.  It was $10 for the candy and molds.  You have to buy your own pretzels.  I still thought it was a good deal as I now have the molds to keep.  I really like white chocolate and pretzels and these were good.  But I managed to just take a nibble of one.  The boys loved them.

Okay, okay, enough pictures already!  I'm exhausted, gotta go night-night.  (Are you happy now, Mom?!)

Amazing Hard Boiled Egg OATMEAL Cookies!

You didn't think we wouldn't do it, did you?  Anna, Rita and I have been in collaboration again with this AMAZING cookie concept.  And doggone it--this oatmeal cookie IS amazing!

(Pictured is a "small" 2 oz. cookie, he got the scrapping from the bottom of the bowl and ended up with lots of raisins and nuts!  He's a looker!)

We have each tried several variations and all three of us came up with slightly different ingredients with almost the same big, fat yummy cookie.  Check out Anna's Amazing Hard Boiled Egg Oatmeal Cookie here at Cookie Madness and look for Rita's at Clumbsy Cookie soon!  Anna has already posted an Amazing Double Chocolate Hard Boiled Egg Cookie recipe that I can't wait to try SOON, very soon!  It looks de-lish.

So here's the recipe as I made it.  You just might have a new favorite oatmeal cookie.  I DO!

Amazing Hard Boiled Egg Oatmeal Cookies (small batch)

2 oz. cold unsalted butter

2 1/4 oz. all purpose flour

1/4 cup quick oats, or if using old-fashioned oats, grind down in the food processor a little

2-3 tablespoon granulated sugar (I used 3, 2 is probably plenty)

1 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar

1/2 tablespoon honey

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (I used 3/4 t. and it is just a bit too much, but I do love the cinnamon in this!)

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8-1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 hard cooked egg (either hard boiled or a lightly beaten egg cooked in microwave in 10 second intervals)

a good handful of roughly chopped walnuts

a good handful of raisins

In bowl of food processor, pulse flour and butter until mealy.  Add sugars, honey, salt, soda, cinnamon and vanilla.  Pulse again until mealy.  Add oats.  Pulse. Add 1/2 a cooked egg and pulse until combined. Remove to a medium size bowl and work in the walnuts and raisins with your hands.  Dough will be a bit crumbly, but will come together as you form it into a ball.  Bake on parchment liked insulated baking sheet for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  Makes 2-4 oz. cookies and 1-2 oz. cookie or 5-2 oz. perfect cookies.  (The smaller ones should bake for 15 min.)  Do not overbake.  Let cool on baking sheet five minutes, then remove cookies to cooling rack.  (I thought these were good just slightly warm, but are great completely cooled, too!)

 

 

This really is amazingly good!  You gotta try these hard boiled egg cookies, I'm tellin' ya!

Mom, stay tuned for Taylor's birthday pictures with ALL the kids in pictures--I really do have four! ;) (I'm going to try this oatmeal cookie with whole wheat flour and I'll let you know how it turns out!)

TWD Lenox Almond Biscotti

Another week FLEW by and here I am with my second Tuesday's With Dorie recipe from Baking From My Home To Yours.  I'm loving this great baking book!  You can get it here at Amazon as well as lots of other places. 

I have NEVER made biscotti before and have often thought of it as being dry like baby Zwieback toast that would only be for dipping in coffee (which I do not drink).  I thought of skipping this week, but didn't really want to since it's only my second week doing TWD.  I also had in my mind that biscotti was a lot harder to make than it really was.  It was just as simple as any other cookie.  You might think that since it has to bake twice, it takes too long.  Well, think of it as baking two sheets of cookies, because these all bake on one sheet.  I felt like it worked well in to my busy afternoon and timed it perfectly with it's resting time before the second bake being right when I needed to pick kids up from school. 

The cookie dough was mixed together quickly and easily.

Dorie suggested in the recipe changing up some of the mix-ins, so instead of using all almonds, I also added some walnuts and pecans.  I love nuts and well, you know what they say, you are what you eat! 

It IS a very soft, sticky dough to work with getting into foot long log shapes on the pan and not too close together, but really it wasn't bad.  You get a little dough on your hands and then you have to lick it off!  (jk, I washed my hands!)

I knew that it really spreads out during the first bake and hoped mine weren't too close together. 

Dorie's first baking time suggestion of 15 minutes seemed like it wasn't enough, so I baked these for an additional 4 minutes and actually thought it could have gone another minute or two, but called it good.  It was a little soft when I sliced them to get ready for the second bake, but it turned out fine. 

They baked up nicely and were crisp, but not hard.  I'm afraid to say that I REALLY liked them.  Kevin actually hates a crispy, crunchy cookie and won't even try a bite.  I LOVED all the nuts and really liked the almond flavor from the almond extract.  So I wouldn't keep eating bites, I bagged them up and am going to give them to a neighbor tomorrow to get them out of my house!

These would be good dunked in milk or hot cocoa.  They would also be great dipped in melted chocolate!  But I do think they are GREAT just as they are!

Another great baked good from this wonderful book!  Thanks to Gretchen at Canela & Comino for choosing biscotti this week.  You can get the recipe for it at her blog.  I enjoyed making it and it tastes great!

Also, if you haven't seen it already, be sure to check out my post from yesterday for some Amazing Hard Boiled Egg Chocolate Chip Cookies that Anna from Cookie Madness and Rita Clumbsy Cookie and I came up with.  It's a great, big, AMAZING cookie!

UPDATE:  For convenience, we've now tried the cookie using only hard boiled egg (1/2 an egg) and no raw egg.  It's even better!  See my post below for the recipe and try it! 

Amazing Hard Boiled Egg Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Extra, Extra--Read all about it! Spread the word about this cookie It's an extra special collaboration between three crazy baking bloggers.  Anna (Cookie Madness), Rita (Clumbsy Cookie) and I shared the same idea of how we wanted a certain cookie to be, so we started with a base formula then made adjustments to the ingredients and technique until we agreed that the cookie had achieved our vision.  Several stomachaches later, we ended up with a delicious cookie. The cookie is perfectly crisp and crunchy on the outside and tender and just the slightess bit "doughy" inside, giving it that great flavor and texture that really makes a chocolate chip cookie what it should be! 

We hate wasting ingredients so to start, we made a very small batch yielding 2 cookies.  Once we fine-tuned that, we scaled it up to 8 cookies.  For those of you who don't need 8 cookies, we've included the small batch version as well.

The first recipe makes 8 large cookies, and by large, I mean 1/4 pound each.  These are big, fat, sturdy cookies that are perfect for wrapping decoratively and presenting to friends.  What's great about these cookies is they hold up well.  The cooked egg keeps them fresher longer and gives the middle an interesting moist yet crumbly texture.  The technique we used to build the cookie also plays into that.  We made the whole cookie in a food processor and started by cutting cold butter into flour. 

The cookies take about 20 minutes to bake.  You can bake them in a regular oven or if you own one, a convection oven.

 

Cookie FAQ

Is this another Levain clone?

No, we love the Levain cookie, but this is our own creation based on a different idea.

 

Can I make the cookies smaller?

Sure, but you'll need to re-adjust bake times to get the same interior texture.

 

I don't have an insulated baking sheet.  Can I still make the cookies?

Yes, just stack one cookie sheet on top of another.

 

I don't have parchment paper.  Can I still make the cookies?

Yes, just lift them off the pan carefully so they won’t break.

 

Do I have to use a food processor?

No, you may use a pastry cutter but it will require a lot of elbow grease to create the coarse, mealy mixture required.

 

Can I make these with European style butter?

Yes.  Rita lives in Europe and that's all she has. 

 

Do I have to use the hard boiled egg?

Yes, for these you do. You can take it out and get a good cookie, but the texture won’t be quite the same.  Although it is okay to cook the egg in the microwave after beating it with a fork.  Cook in 10 second intervals until done-it only takes about 30 seconds and saves a lot of time!

 

Amazing Hard Boiled Egg Chocolate Chip Cookies!

12.4 oz all purpose bleached flour (2 ¾ cups spooned and swept)

8 ounces cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks (16 tablespoons or 2 sticks)

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 hard boiled egg, cut into big chunks (Update:  it's now been tested using only hard boiled egg (2) and is even better!) 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 package or 2 cups semi-sweet or milk (or a combo, which is what I do) chocolate chips

Combine flour and butter in food processor. Pulse until mixture is mealy and coarse. Add the salt and baking soda and pulse to mix. Add both sugars and hard boiled egg. Pulse again until mixture is mealy looking. Add in the raw egg and vanilla and pulse until mixture just begins to come together.

Dump mixture into a bowl, add chocolate chips and shape into eight balls. You will see egg whites in dough – they’ll disappear as the cookies bake.

Bake on a parchment lined cookie sheet at 350 degrees F. for 20 minutes or until cookies appear lightly browned around edges. Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to rack to finish cooling.

Important: Let cool completely before serving. The texture gets better as the cookies cool. It’s even better if you cool the cookies, freeze them, then thaw them.

Makes 8 big cookies

Note: If you have a convection oven, try convection baking for 18-20 minutes. I tested in both types of oven and liked the convection oven texture a lot.

 

Here's the smaller version so you can try it out, but after that you'll want to make the large batch over and over! ;)

 

Amazing Hard Boiled Egg Chocolate Chip Cookies! (Small Batch)

3.1 oz all purpose bleached flour (2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon flour)

2 ounces cold unsalted butter (4 tablespoons)

1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda

3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 of a hard boiled egg  (Update:  it's now been tested using only hard boiled egg (1/2 egg and no raw egg) and it's even better!) 

1 tablespoon lightly beaten egg

1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract 
1/4 cup or how ever many your want of semi sweet or milk (or both!) chocolate chips

Combine flour and butter in food processor. Pulse until mixture is mealy and coarse. Add the salt and baking soda and pulse to mix. Add both sugars and hard boiled egg. Pulse again until mixture is mealy looking. Add in the raw egg and vanilla and pulse until mixture just begins to come together.

Dump mixture into a bowl, add chocolate chips and shape into two balls. You will see egg whites in dough – they’ll disappear as the cookies bake.

Bake on a parchment lined cookie sheet at 350 degrees F. for 20 minutes or until cookies appear lightly browned around edges. Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to rack to finish cooling.

Important: Let cool completely before serving. The texture gets better as the cookies cool. It’s even better if you cool the cookies, freeze them, then thaw them.

Makes 2 big cookies (about 4 oz. each)

You Gotta Try These!  They are super easy to make, too!  (Thanks Anna and Rita!  This was fun!)

When Life Hands You Cake (That No One Likes), Make Cookies!

 

You were right, Rita!  For Kevin's birthday I made a cake I thought he'd like because it's like undone brownie in the middle and he loves molten chocolate cakes.  It was beautiful, but we all thought it was way too "undone"--that's saying a lot from me because I like doughy cookies and such.  It was also too bittersweet for us.  Our simple palates just wanted good old tasty chocolate, but this was too deep and rich.  So we all choked down a piece and the rest of it sat in the fridge for a few days.

 Melt-In-Your-Mouth Chocolate Cake--I know, how could we not like this?  It just wasn't our "style".  It sure looks good though, so here's the recipe.  I got this recipe from here and followed the recipe exactly, even the baking time and turning off the oven.  I wish I would have baked it just a little longer.  This IS a good cake, I think we just weren't in the mood for it as we'd just eaten a bunch of goodies, then dinner, when I forced this cake on the birthday festivities.

I couldn't just throw it out though.  So, not being all that creative, I just stuck it in the freezer (but not for as long as I'd have liked, it was only while I made cookie dough) and whipped up my favorite chocolate chip cookie dough.  I then chopped up the cake into pieces, much like I did with the brownies a while back.  I added that to the cookie dough and baked them off.  Since the cake was so deep, dense, and rich like that kind of brownie, these pretty much taste like the cookies that have brownie chunks in them.  I feel good that nothing went to waste!   I usually always halve this cookie dough recipe, so having done that, I also took half the dough that I'd put this cake into and added about 1/3 cup Reese's Pieces and oh, a good two tablespoonsful of peanut butter swirled throughout the dough.  It was yummy.  The cookie are good and now I'm happy to have not wasted the cake that no one wanted to eat.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

And now for a quick product review.

I saw this marshmallow creme at the store and was a bit intrigued to try it.  They have three flavors.  The one I bought was S'Mores, toasted marshmallow flavored with some chocolate coated graham pieces to add in.  Also available was PB&J with peanut butter and jelly pieces as well as Very Berry with little berry candy pieces for mix-ins.  I followed the recipe you can find at Solo Foods website, the company who makes this stuff.  On sale for 2 containers of marshmallow for $4.00 at our local grocery store.   

And when all was said and done:

Results:  I'd only give these about a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10.  They are just okay.  I'd rather make rice crispies from "scratch" using the tried and true rice crispy recipe or even the Kraft marshmallow recipe.  These were a bit dry.  The crispy wasn't gooey enough and was a bit crumbly.  The little chocolatey graham bits were good.  I think they just need more marshmallow to go with the six cups of cereal they suggest.  But that's just my opinion.  These still got eaten up!

Would You Look At This Face?!

This little joy of my life, makes messes everywhere he goes--especially with food.  But get a look at this--I cannot be mad at this face!

The eyes just melt my heart.  Yep, it's more Nutella.  I put a little between two Ritz crackers.  First thing he does is open it up and "eat" or wear the Nutella and throw away the crackers.  Smarty. 

I wanted to post a few goodies today, but I am too pooped to post!  It's been a day.  Another cute thing my little guy does--he knows that when the timer goes off (and it does a lot around here!), that I head for the oven, get the oven mitts and take out the "hot stuff", so as soon as the timers starts beeping, he now runs into the kitchen and thinks he's going to get it before me.

Not sure what I'm going to do when he can actually open the oven, but how cute is he!

Stay tuned for some great recipes coming up.  Hint:  When life hands you cake, make.............

Tuesday's With Dorie Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake!

So I did it, I made my first Tuesday's With Dorie recipe with all the other baker's in the group.  This was quite the cake!  I thought it was going to be more brownie like, but mine was a really dense chocolatey cake.  It was good and I loved the caramel and peanuts on top.  It would be fun to try other nuts, too.  Who is Dorie Greenspan?  Well, you should know she is an amazing baker and cook book author and I highly recommend her book, Baking From My Home to Yours.  This book has some GREAT recipes in it!

I baked up the cake without incident.  It did just as Dorie suggested it might, rose up high in the oven and while cooling, sank a little in the center.  Good thing she put that in the recipe, or I might have thought I'd done something wrong.

 

On to the caramel!  I was actually not real thrilled with the idea of making homemade caramel, it has just always seems hard, I guess.  But I'm doing this weekly baking group to expand my skills, so here I go, or there I went.  The recipes says to put the sugar, some water and corn syrup in a pot on the stove and do not stir it for ten minutes.  I did that, then you're supposed to check for a dark amber color to the sugar and that is how you decide when it is ready for the next step.  So, after the ten minutes, my sugar had just barely started getting any color.  I had noticed other baker's who were mentioning theirs took more like 15-20 minutes.  I set the timer for 2 minutes, but fully intended to keep an eye on it.  Well, that was when my son, Parker decided he really wanted to show me that he can tie his shoes-finally.  So I stepped in to the living room to watch him.  During the tying, I started smell that smell, you know, that smell that you never want to smell in the kitchen--something burning!  I jumped up and ran in to see my caramel went from barely any color to, well, hmmm, let's say a deep, dark auburn--burn being the key word there, within about one minute!

DARN!

Well, I'm not up for failure, so I got a new pot and started again.  This time letting the kids know I could not be "bugged" for a matter of time.  I stayed with the caramel and got through the ten minutes of watching the sugar boil and not touching it.  Sure enough right at about 11 minutes, it was perfectly dark amber.  I quickly removed it from the heat, added some cream and butter and was much more delighted than 15 minutes prior to that!

Onto the peanuts.  I found these peanuts at the store, haven't seen them before and was excited to try them.  It says they are extra crunchy and THEY ARE!  I like them.  (There is no added sugar.) 

The family oohed and ahhed as I brought it to the table, just as Dorie said they should/would.  It wasn't until slicing it and serving it and of course, tasting it that we realized it was more cake-like than brownie-like, but I was delicious!  I ate a few too many bites of it, considering my "diet", but I love the caramel-peanuts!  I really only ate a tiny sliver of a piece, but kept picking at the peanuts.  (Now they had added sugar!) ;)  Some in the family liked it, some didn't like a few of my little boys who just don't have very "sophisticated" taste at their young age.  I took four big slices to the neighbors and I'm sure I'll be hearing raves about it from them. 

 

Want some?  Get Dorie's book and make this cake!  You won't be sorry! ;)

Thanks to Tammy of wee treats by tammy for this week's TWD pick!  You can find the recipe on Tammy's blog.

Oh So Many Things! Gotta Start With These Amazing Mint Brownies!

My husband doesn't love a lot of sweet, sugary things!  I know, I know, what a tragedy beings how I bake things pretty much every day!  He also doesn't particularly like frosting, especially on cake.  But the other day he emailed me this link to some brownies he remembered having at many different functions while in college that he liked.  He was just passing the recipe along to me, since I am so into baking.   These brownies come from BYU (Brigham Young University) and are SO good.  The brownies are surprisingly rich and fudgy (I wasn't sure it would be, since it only has a bit of cocoa.)  And the two layers of frosting really just kick the brownies up a notch on the "Whoa!" scale of deliciousness!

I only made one change from the original recipe as the recipe called for margarine in both the brownie and the icing, but I don't buy margarine, so I used butter.  You really gotta try these!  These are so good that I've given a bunch away and have tucked the rest away into the fridge and am doing well to pretend that they aren't here!  I wish Kevin would eat them up.  So far, he's only had a bite.  We went to dinner with some friends last night and everyone shared a gigantic dessert, which made him over-the-top too full to come home later and try the brownies.  He asked if there was a way to make them good and minty without the layers of frosting.  In the past, I have made some really good brownies by just taking a bag of Andes mint pieces and sprinkling it on top of the baked, hot brownies.  Once melted, spread evenly with a knife.  Let cool and set.  These are also good, but I'd have to say, these BYU Mint Brownies are exceptional!

BYU Mint Brownies, adapted slightly

1 cup butter (or margarine if you must)

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 tablespoons honey (after all, Utah IS the beehive state!)

2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped (Nuts are so easy to "toast" in a plate in the microwave for 1-2 minutes, check after 30 second intervals depending on the amount used.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 9x13 inch pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.  Set. aside.

Melt butter in microwave safe dish, combine with cocoa.  Allow to cool slightly.  Add honey, sugar and eggs.  Mix well.  Brownies batters can easily be mixed by hand with a whisk and wooden spoon.  Add flour, baking powder and salt.  Stir to combine until well mixed.  Add nuts.  Pour batter into pan and spread evenly.  Bake for 25 minutes.  (Start checking with a toothpick inserted in center to come out clean after 20 minutes.)  Cool on wire rack.

Prepare mint icing.

Mint Icing

5 tablespoons butter, softened

dash of salt

2-3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon light corn syrup

2 1/3 cups powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon mint extract

green food coloring

To the softened butter, add salt, corn syrup, and powdered sugar.  Beat until smooth and fluffy.  Add mint extract and food coloring.  Mix well.  Add milk gradually until the consistency is a little thinner than cake frosting.  Spread mint icing over cooled brownies.  Place brownies in the freezer for a short time to stiffen the icing.  Remove from the freezer and add a layer of your favorite chocolate icing.  (I used a 1/2 recipe for Hershey's Cocoa Frosting from off the can of cocoa.  It's good!)

YUMMY!

We interrupt this post to bring you a special message:  When you're almost out of Nutella, a delicious choclately hazelnut spread, you must get more soon!  Sam says so.  (He was thrilled to pieces that I gave him the pretty-much empty container and let him have at it.....)

"S'All Gone!"

A few days later.......

"Ahhh, new fresh Nutella!  Thanks, Mom!"  Thanks, Nutella, I say!  (Rita, we gotta try some of that Peanutella!)

And now back to our regularly scheduled goodies and recipes.

When you ask Kevin what his favorite cookie is, he thinks about it and pretty much always says "Snickerdoodles".  Great, since it is his birthday tomorrow, I made him some.  I haven't made these for a while, but always use this recipe I found years ago on Allrecipes.  All I can say is I don't know who Mrs. Sigg is, but she has some great recipes out there.  I know I've tried a number of other recipes from her as well.  These are a great Snickerdoodle!  They are perfectly crisp on the outside and chewy throughout.  Now, while I do prefer a chocolate chip cookie, when I eat one of these, I am satisfied and they are really good.  And now, I must not eat any more of them!

Mrs. Sigg's Snickerdoodles, found on Allrecipes.com

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup shortening (I know, I try not to use this either, but since it was for Kevin's birthday, I made an exception and it IS trans-fat free!)

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper.  Set aside.

In bowl of electric mixer, cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, eggs and vanilla.  Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.  Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.  Mix 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon together.  Roll balls of dough in mixture.  Place two inches apart on baking sheets.  Bake 8 minutes.  Remove to wire racks to cool. 

 

Another brief interruption from this regular post.   Look at the size of this apple!  You can't even tell how big it really was, but I seriously think it was the biggest apple I've ever seen.  Nope, didn't get it at the farmer's market, although apples are rampant there right now.  This was at the grocery store.  It's a Cortland apple and was so perfectly sweet and tart and only $1.28 per pound.  Also got some gorgeous MacIntosh apples that were equally as beautiful, but not quite as big--still big apples though.  Yum!

 

 

Get this--I hosted a baby shower at our house a few days ago and made a number of goodies for it, including THESE Apple Crumb Bars that I made and posted recently and loved.  So I made them for the shower, cut them up perfectly sized on a pretty plate and put it in the fridge to serve at the shower.  The shower came and went and I never thought about the apple bars again, although I kept feeling like something was missing, they still never crossed my mind.  After everyone left, I reached for a drink of water in the fridge and lookie what I found!

 

Bummer!  I'd forgotten all about them.  I really wanted to share them with everyone, too.  So I packaged them up and stuck them in the freezer for another time!  Sigh.  These are so good!  Thanks, Anna.

Stay tuned for some more delicious baked goods that I've made recently and stay tuned for my first Tuesday's With Dorie post.  This ones gonna be good--Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake!