Cinnamon Roll Rice Krispies Treats

Yes, you read that right—Cinnamon Roll Rice Krispies Treats and I’ll be darned if they don’t taste just like a cinnamon roll—but in Rice Krispies treats fashion. 

A couple months ago I found Kraft Cinnamon Bun Marshmallows at the store and grabbed a bag.  (They are since hard to find and I’m not sure you could find them, but try your local Super Target—they seem to have all the good limited edition stuff!)  You could totally make these treats with regular marshmallows because it’s really the added cinnamon/brown sugar/butter mixture that is spread over them before rolling them up and the drizzled icing on top that makes them so cinnamon roll-like. 

Simple as can be.  I just made Rice Krispies Treats and pressed them onto a 15 x 10 inch baking sheet.  I then removed them from the sheet and laid them on a cutting board.  After spreading the cinnamon mixture over them, I rolled the thin Krispies up just as I’d do cinnamon rolls.

Ready to roll!

Rolled and ready to slice!

All lined up and ready to be drizzled!

Yeah, they’re good just like this—but a cinnamon roll isn’t a cinnamon roll without the icing on top!

Cinnamon Roll Rice Krispies Treats, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

8 ounce bag of Cinnamon Bun Marshmallows**

2 ounces regular miniature marshmallows**

4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter

6 cups (165 grams) Rice Krispies cereal

For the cinnamon filling--

4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup (110 grams) packed brown sugar

1  1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (or to taste)

For the icing--

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoons corn syrup

1-2 tablespoons milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Spray an 15 x 10 inch baking sheet lightly with cooking spray.  Set aside.

In a large microwave safe bowl, combine the marshmallows (**The Cinnamon Bun mallows come in 8 ounce bags, you want a total of 10 ounces of marshmallows, which is what size the bag of regular miniature marshmallows come in**, so if you can’t get the Cinnamon Bun mallows, just use regular!) and the butter.  Microwave the marshmallows and butter in 30 second intervals until (it only takes about 1 1/2 minutes).  Add the cereal and stir to combine.  Press the cereal mixture evenly in the baking sheet.  It will spread out prefectly!

In a medium sized bowl, combine the brown sugar, softened butter and cinnamon and stir with a fork to mix well.  Remove the Rice Krispies Treats from the baking sheet and set them on a cutting board.  (They should be sturdy enough to pick up and lay the whole thing on the board without breaking.)  Spread the cinnamon/butter mixture evenly over the treats.  Roll the treat up starting from the long end.  Slice into 16 (about 1 inch each) rolls.  Set each one down on the baking sheet.

In another medium sized bowl, combine the powdered sugar, corn syrup and vanilla.  Add one tablespoon of the milk and whisk together (you can also do this in an electric mixer, but I did it all by hand and it was easy enough).  Until the icing is the desired consistency, add a little more milk at a time until it is the thickness you’d like.  Put the icing in a plastic zip top bag  and snip of a corner.  Drizzle the icing over the “cinnamon rolls”.  Let sit until the icing is set—about 30 minutes.

These are being eating quickly at our house!  Since I know I’ll have a hard time finding the Cinnamon Bun Marshmallows again, I plan to make these again and use the regular ones.  I think they’ll be just as good!

Healthy Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles

These tasty, perfectly peanut buttery and dark chocolaty treats are just the thing for a little sweet bite when you need one.  I love that they are actually pretty healthy and you could easily make them gluten free. You might think peanut butter and chocolate ARE gluten free, but I happened to use Naturally More Peanut Butter which has a few added ingredients, like flax seeds.  The ingredient list also includes wheat germ, so these aren’t gluten free, but you could use any natural peanut butter you’d like and most are just peanuts and salt.

I can’t even take credit for this and I’m sure there have been lots of chocolate peanut butter truffles on the internet, but I was/am happy enough with how these turned out that I needed to share them with all of you.  I actually got the recipe from the Coconut Recipes website.  It was a newly submitted recipe by a reader, Megan from Glendale, California.  I liked that these have coconut flour and coconut oil.  I have a bag of coconut flour that I’ve been wanting to find more things to use it up with.

These couldn’t have been more simple to make.  Some natural peanut butter was mixed with just a touch of agave nectar (you could also use honey) and some coconut flour.  After forming the peanut butter mixture into balls, they are frozen for a short time and then dipped in melted dark chocolate.  That’s it.  You could easily make a bunch of these for a party or as gifts.

Healthy Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!, adapted from Coconut Recipes

6 tablespoons (96 grams) natural peanut butter

1 tablespoon agave nectar (or honey)

pinch of salt (if using unsalted peanut butter)

1/4 cup coconut flour

3 ounces dark chocolate

1/2 teaspoon coconut oil

Line a baking sheet with waxed paper.  Mix together in a medium sized bowl the peanut butter, agave, salt and coconut flour.  (This easily mixes together with a spoon—no need for a mixer!)  Once it’s all combined, form the peanut butter mixture into teaspoon-sized balls.  Set on the waxed paper and freeze for 30 minutes.

Melt the chocolate and coconut oil either in a glass microwave-safe bowl or in a double boiler on the stove over medium heat.  Stir until melted and smooth.  Let sit for a few minutes so it’s not too hot before dipping each of the peanut butter balls into the melted chocolate.  Set each one on a fork, set it down in the chocolate and spoon more melted chocolate over it until covered.  Tap the edge of the fork on the bowl to let any of the excess chocolate drip off into the bowl. 

Set each one on the waxed paper and let sit until the chocolate hardens (it starts to immediately because the peanut butter is frozen).  You can also set the sheet full in the refrigerator to set up completely when they are all finished.  This smaller recipes make about 12 truffles, you could easily double the recipe.

This post is being added to Lisa’s Sweets for a Saturday over at her delicious blog, Sweet as Sugar Cookies!

 

TWD—Baking With Julia—Lemon Loaf Cake

Baking With Julia for Tuesdays With Dorie this week is the Lemon Loaf Cake on pages 252-253.  Don’t go freaking out on me or anything, but I made it exactly as the recipe was written (again). 

I made this cake for Easter dessert and we had some family over.  I had also made a carrot cake, a cheesecake and some cookies.  The cheesecake was plain, so I made a blueberry compote, some raspberry coulis and for the boys’ sake, I opened a can of cherry pie filling.  Everyone could choose if they wanted any of those on their cheesecake or the lemon cake.

Since this cake isn’t very “light” with its many eggs, sugar, heavy cream and butter, I only took a taste of it.  I thought it was good!  I do wish I had taken the time for put a lemon glaze on it.  I’d planned to, but ran out of time before company came.

I thought the cake was definitely good with the bite I took (okay, two bites, one of each with the two berries)!

After sending some of our family home with cake, there were a few pieces left.  I stuck them in the freezer and on a day I feel like splurging, I keep thinking it would be really good lightly toasted.

If you want this recipe, our hosts this week are Truc from Treats and Michelle from The Beauty of Life.

Hershey’s Coconut Crème Kisses Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yesterday I made chocolate chip cookies—I used my favorite chocolate chip cookies.  But for this coconut version, you can use any recipe you’d like.  But I’m telling you, that favorite recipe of mine (adapted from the NYT/Jacques Torres famous chocolate chip cookie recipe) is THE BEST—and I’m not the only one to think so.  The cookie is requested by friends and family just about everywhere I go.  If you haven’t yet, when you go to get the recipe on the link I’ve left, just know that it is SO worth having bread flour and cake flour in your pantry if for nothing but to make these cookies whenever you need want to.  So there’s my little speech about that.

Like I was saying, yesterday I made the big batch of cookies (sometimes I halve it).  I needed to try out my new Pampered Chef small cookie scoop.  I ordered it recently at a neighbor’s party after being fed up that the grocery store scoops I’ve been buying keep breaking so easily.  Turned out the new scoop was smaller than I thought, but I love it!  I have the other sizes of scoops (though not Pampered Chef and I’ll be getting those soon!).  With my big mixing bowl full of chocolate chip cookie dough, I decided to make a number of different kinds of cookies.  I looked in my “baking stash” cupboard and found a bag of the new already unwrapped chocolate caramel Rolos, some Andes Mint pieces and some Hershey’s Coconut Crème Kisses.  It was time to play!

I made some of the cookies “plain”, some I stuck a Rolo on as soon as they came out of the oven.  With some of the dough, I added Andes mint pieces and then with more of the dough (it makes a lot, I tell you, especially small cookies) I added some toasted, unsweetened shredded coconut and topped them with a Hershey’s Coconut Crème Kiss as soon as they came out of the oven.  I will say that the Kisses that are solid chocolate all the way through tend to melt more on a hot cookie—even after I froze the Kisses to try to stop them from melting down quite so much.  They ended up mostly making a delicious chocolate/coconut pool on the top of the cookie.  So while still good, I wanted them to keep their Kiss shape.  I figured it out with the last cookie sheet of cookies.  As soon as they came out of the oven and I topped them with a Kiss, I put the sheet in the freezer for a few minutes.  They ended up not melting too much—word up though, don’t’ do like I did and put them on a section of the freezer that is not flat.  I ended up spilling half the batch into the freezer!  Enough of them were saved for a few photos!

I actually (oops) didn’t even photograph any of the other cookies and Kevin took all the leftovers to work with him this morning.  The Rolo ones were cute, too, and good.  And of course the mini version of the chocolate chip cookies were great!  I have made Andes Mint Chip Cookies before, so I already knew those would be good.  Looking back at the photos for that Andes Mint link makes me want to make them again.  I actually liked the Hershey’s Kisses Coconut Crème Chocolate Chip Cookies so much, I didn’t even taste one of the mint ones yesterday. ;)

Go ahead, play around with chocolate chip cookies—it’s yummy!

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies—Secret Recipe Club

I love getting new assignments for the Secret Recipe Club each month.  I can’t help it, each time I do, the first thing I do is search the assigned blog for cookies!  I love trying new cookie recipes and/or being inspired by some I see and coming up with creations of my own.  I actually enjoy just spending time on whichever blog I receive to secretly make something from and looking at everything they’ve posted. 

This month the blog I had was Carol’s blog, No Reason Needed.   Carol and her family live in Ontario, Canada.  She has a fun "about me" section on her blog.  Sounds like a really fun lady.  Check it out.

After looking through Carol’s blog, I found a couple of cookie recipes I wanted to try.  Today I will highlight one of those that I actually made, and will blog about the other cookie in another post soon.  Both cookies I made were fantastic!  Today I decided to tell you about a great tasting cookie called Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies.  Carol posted that she got these cookies from the Spring 2010 Kraft What’s Cooking Magazine.  At the time I chose to make the cookies, I ended up only making half a batch and a few adjustments to the recipe.  I have since made the cookies again with the same great results!

Here’s my half recipe version with the adjustments I made, which also include high altitude instructions or adjustments for the regular recipe.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies, by Katrina, Baking and Boys! adapted from Carol at No Reason Needed

3/4 cup peanut butter (192 grams), I used Skippy Natural, creamy

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

5 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/3 cup, minus 1 tablespoon packed brown sugar

1 large egg

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup quick cooking oats

7 tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour (you could also use all purpose flour)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (6 ounces) dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 

Cream together the peanut butter and butter in the bowl of a mixer.  Add the sugars and beat for a couple minutes.  Scrape the sides of the bowl.  Add the egg and vanilla and beat well.

Whisk together in a small bowl the oats, flour, salt and baking soda.  Add the dry ingredients to the peanut butter mixture.  Beat just to combine.  Stir in the chocolate chips.  Using a cookie scoop or a tablespoon, put cookie dough on the baking sheet.  Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes.  Cool on baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.  Makes about 18 cookies.

**The recipe I made have adjustments that I have found work well in our high altitude in Utah.  To make the cookies more as the recipe suggested use these amounts instead---6 tablespoons granulated sugar, 1/3 cup packed brown sugar and 6 tablespoons flour.

So happy I made these!  Check out Carol’s blog and all the great stories she shares as well as the yummy food!

Spring Marshmallow Rice Krispies Treats and Gummy Bear Rice Krispies Treats

You know of my love for making all kinds of delicious RICE KrISpIeS TREATS, I have now over 15 fun Rice Krispies Treats recipes on my blog.

Having bought a bag of the Easter bunnies Kraft Marshmallows recently, I decided to throw some of those in some good ol’ “plain” Rice Krispies Treats.  They easily became fun, festive, colorful and even more ooey, gooey and marshmallow-y.  (Add the colored marshmallows after you’ve melted the other marshmallows with butter, mixed in the cereal and it starts to cool a bit so they don’t melt too much!)

I really started thinking of what I could do after Kevin recently bought a giant bag of gummy bears for an out of town trip he was going on---and then forgot to take them with him.  After he returned from his trip, he challenged me to make something with the gummy bears.  Challenge on!

Well, did you know that even if you make chocolate covered gummy bears, they will still melt all over when they are baked into a cookie?  Yep, they do.  I kind of knew they would, but tried it anyway.  I was hoping that maybe chocolate covering them would protect them a little.  No—pools of melted colors all over my parchment paper covered baking sheet, oozing out of the cookies.  Not too big of a loss, since I wasn’t thinking it would work, I only made a few cookies with gummy bears, but at least I tried.

That was when I decided the gummy bears needed to be put in some kind of no-bake treat, so of course I decided it needed to be Rice Krispies Treats.  When I made the Easter bunny mallow treats, I put half of it in a 9x9 inch pan with just the extra marshmallows, then with the other half, I stirred in some gummy bears, too and put that in an 8x8 inch pan.

These are a big hit with the boys as they like anything with candy.  I prefer just the ones with the Easter bunny marshmallows.  Is there a better, easier treat out there than Rice Krispies Treats.  Just follow the recipe on the box (or there is also one on the bag of marshmallows) and add other things to it—easy, fun, and yummy! 

TWD—Baking With Julia—Pizza Rustica

Pizza Rustica—sounds like pizza, but is more like a quiche or savory pie.  We made that this go-round for Tuesdays With Dorie--Baking With Julia.  It is fun to be making these recipes in Baking With Julia now.  I like that we go from simple Irish soda bread to something more involved like Rugelach or this Pizza Rustica.

I like the pie.  Even though I used a low fat ricotta, I know that this “pizza” is not really low fat, so I’ve tried not to eat too much of it.  My only problem with it was the crust.  It was quite a wet dough, did not specify any chilling time and I could not get it to roll out without sticking like crazy to my well-floured surface.  I persevered and ended up pressing the bottom crust in to the pie plate.  Since the top crust wasn’t going to cooperate with being rolling out and cut into lattice strips, I cut it into fun circles and placed them over the top of the pie.  The little circles were much easier to work with getting off the counter. 

I was happy that I even decided while buying ricotta to get some prosciutto instead of just using ham or bacon like I was going to and it was really good.  The only change I made to the whole recipe was that I used low fat ricotta instead of whole milk.

I think this would be good with a different crust, like just a regular pie crust.  Not sure what my problem was with this one, but I followed the recipe exactly.  Maybe the original recipe came from someone who measures flour with a heavy hand.  I weighed mine.  Either way, this is a great pizza pie for a brunch or even breakfast or lunch, whatever, you could have it for dinner, too.

If you want the recipe, Emily from Capital Region Dining or Raelyn from  The Place They Call Home are the hosts this time and they’ll have the recipe posted for you.  Lots of Pizza Rustica viewing for your hungry eyes over at TWD Headquarters.

Healthier Chocolate Chip Cookies (Recipe With Whole Wheat and Pure Cane Sugar)

It’s always nice to be in love.  Agreed?  Yes!  I’ve been in love for over 15 years now and I’d have to say it’s pretty darn great!  Fell in love again today—but it’s a different kind of love—it’s these cookies.  I love them.  Plain and simple.  And I know what you’re thinking, “But Katrina, those look like just any other chocolate chip cookie.”  Well, for me, they are almost like my favorite chocolate chip cookies, but I took that same recipe, made a few healthier changes and am SO happy with how they turned out on the first try!

I really am trying to be better at eating healthier things, but especially cutting back on refined sugar and white flour (though I do so love them!) ;)  But being “better” doesn’t mean you can never have delicious things and indulge now and then.  I just feel better when I need a little treat knowing it is just a little better but is still very satisfying.  These cookies have whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose flour.  Then they have pure cane sugar instead of white granulated (refined) sugar and finally I used Bestlife buttery baking sticks instead of butter.  Besides detecting the slight nuttiness from the whole wheat flour, I would never know they don’t have “real” butter and “real” sugar.  So I am in love!

In the recipe, I am giving all the equivalents for most of the ingredients in ounces, grams or cup/tablespoon measurements.  That is because I want anyone to be able to make these cookies, but I really prefer to do most of my baking by weighing ingredients on my kitchen scale.  I have found that doing so gives the best results.  If you don’t have a kitchen scale, I highly recommend you get one!  This is a smaller recipe, because I was trying it out for the first time.  You could easily double it.

Healthier Chocolate Chip Cookies, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons (8  1/2 ounces) whole wheat pastry flour

heaping 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

scant 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

scant 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

5 tablespoons (2  1/2 ounces) Bestlife Buttery Baking Sticks (or any trans fat free butter substitute—not margarine!), softened

1/2 cup plus 1  1/2 tablespoons pure cane sugar (120 grams)

1 teaspoon molasses

1/2 a large egg (25 grams or 2 tablespoons of beaten egg)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 to 1 cup good quality chocolate chips (I used 60% cacao chips) (5 ounces)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  Set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Whisk together, set aside.

Cream the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Add the cane sugar and molasses and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Add the egg and vanilla and beat another minute or so.  Scrape the sides of the bowl.  Add the dry ingredients and beat just until combined.  Stir in the chocolate chips.  Scoop out cookie dough balls onto baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes (longer if you want them crispier).  Remove from oven** and let sit on baking sheet 5-10 minutes.  Remove to wire racks to cool completely.  Makes about 18 cookies.

**If any cookies are not nicely rounded, I like to push them into shape with the edge of a metal spatula as soon as they come out of the oven.  Just gently push around any edges that are sticking out.  I do this with pretty much any cookies that are funny shaped or not rounded.  You just need to do it before they start to harden up right out of the oven.  I don’t like what I call “amoeba” cookies. ;)

Love this guy---

        

Bah, cute—who is that?  It’s Kevin when he was a baby and in kindergarten (and that’s an engagement picture of us from 15 years ago)!

Love these cookies, too!  Okay, I love a lot of other people and things, but you get the idea.  Make these cookies, try them out!

Whole Wheat Honey Banana Nut Bread

In trying recently to eat more whole grains (and basically just less white flour and sugar), I found this recipe for Whole Wheat Honey Banana Nut Bread.  So besides the whole wheat flour, it also has no refined sugar.  This bread is sweetened with honey, but I think the abundance of bananas helps make this perfectly sweet and full of banana flavor.

When I have overripe bananas (which is often), I usually just make muffins.  I like how much faster they bake than banana bread.  But for some reason as I was looking at the bananas on the kitchen counter yesterday, and looking out the window at the very windy rain-turned-blowing-snow storm, I felt like baking bread.  Being “stuck” at home with a sick eight year old, I haven’t been to the store for almost a week and we were out of bread.  So I actually made some white bread in the bread machine.  The boys (and Kevin) love white bread, so while I didn’t eat any, traditional white bread is always a winner here.   The book I got with my bread machine, which we’ve had for at least seven years, is full of great and perfect recipes for the bread machine.

After making the white bread and knowing I was planning to have tortellini for dinner, I also had the bread machine whip up some French bread that I thought would go nicely with the tortellini.  The bread machine did all the work and just before the last rise time, I pulled the dough out of the machine and shaped it into a French loaf and had it finish rising on a baking sheet and baked it in the oven.  It actually turned out some great French bread!

Let’s get back to the banana bread!  While I was in stay-out-of-the-late-March-snowstorm mode and in the bread baking mood, I decided instead of banana muffins to make banana bread.  I wanted to be able to eat some of it, so I found a recipe that was whole wheat and had no refined sugar.  This bread has honey, which actually tastes great and I was surprised and happy to see the bread baked up perfectly.  I think I’ll try agave in place of the honey next time, just because agave has a lower glycemic index.

  I wish I could say this was my recipe or that I even adapted it.  But I didn’t even adapt it at all.  I found the recipes at Allrecipes.  Here’s the link for the Whole Wheat Honey Banana Nut Bread.  I wish I would have thrown some dark chocolate chips in the bread, because now Taylor tells me he only likes banana bread if there is chocolate in it.  (I don’t know where he got that from?) ;)

TWD—Baking With Julia—Irish Soda Bread

I know what you’re thinking—that doesn’t look like Irish Soda Bread.  What?  You’ve never seen Irish Soda Bread with chocolate and toffee?  Well, this IS me here. ;)  The thing about this was that I just knew “plain” Irish Soda Bread would not have been eaten here.  I didn’t make an Irish meal or anything to have it with, but decided Sunday afternoon to go ahead and make it so I wasn’t skipping out on TWD this go-around. 

That said, I decided to make half a recipe and throw in a few things that would make this sure to get eaten here.  Naturally, that was chocolate!  So instead of the sometimes normal addition of raisins or currants in Irish Soda Bread—I added some chopped milk chocolate and toffee bits.  The boys enjoyed this for their snack Sunday evening—what made it even better—smearing some Nutella on a slice of the bread!

What do you eat/serve Irish Soda Bread with?

Cathy at My Culinary Mission and Carla at Chocolate Moosey are the hosts for the recipe this week.  You’ll find it posted on their blogs.  Are you Baking With Julia yet?  It’s a wonderful book!

White Chocolate and Lime Popcorn with White Chocolate M&Ms

I know, this just looks like a bowl of popcorn with some pastel colored M&M’s in it.  But there is a little added twist of deliciousness.

The popcorn is from Orville Redenbacher.  It’ is one of their Natural microwave popcorns that is Lime & Salt flavor.  I love it.  Not sure I’ll ever be able to eat popcorn without lime flavor in it again. ;)

After also recently finding White Chocolate M&M’s, I started thinking about how good white chocolate and lime would be together. 

So this is actually not really a recipe, but an idea I carried out.  Try it—I thought I’d just have a few bites and let the kids eat  the rest.  And I ended up eating the whole thing!  Shhh.  No, those microwaveable bags of popcorn are the smaller individual sizes.

I popped a bag of the delicious lime and salt popcorn and melted around 2 ounces of white chocolate (Lindt is the best!).  I pour the melted white chocolate over the popcorn and stirred it to coat all of it evenly.  I then put it in the fridge to harden up for a few minutes.  Although it was just fine and tasted great still “wet”!  Then for kicks, I sprinkled some of the White Chocolate M&M’s in with the popcorn.  Those M&M’s are good, white chocolate is actually not my preferred kind of chocolate (dark, Baby!), but now and then it’s a fun little sweet treat. 

White Chocolate and Lime are a match made in heaven! 

TWD—Baking With Julia—Rugelach

Our Tuesdays With Dorie--Baking With Julia recipe this time is for a delightful cookie called Rugelach.  I loved these when we made them for Tuedays With Dorie BFMHTY way back in November 2008.  Todays recipe is a bit different from that rugelach, but is equally as good.

I did do a few things different from the recipe.  I can’t help it!  I made only 1/4 of the cream cheese pastry dough because I knew that Kevin doesn’t like this kind of cookie (like pie crust—which I love, too)!  Then as I read about the fillings and topping, I kind of decided to just do my own thing and I skipped topping the pastries with more sugar.  So here’s what I used—orange marmalade, the cinnamon/sugar mixture and some mini chocolate chips.  I just spread the marmalade on the rolled out dough, then sprinkled the cinnamon/sugar over that and added the chocolate.  I had no problems rolling up the dough.  And then I kind of cheated and instead of chilling the dough another 4 hours to overnight, I stuck it in the freezer while I preheated the oven.  After about 15-20 minutes, I cut the roll into slices and laid them flat on the baking sheet to bake them. 

They turned out really nice and taste great!  The ones in Dorie’s book look great as they are chock full of nuts and dried fruit and lots of cinnamon/sugar in them and more on the top.  I just felt a little lazy as I got ready to finish making them.  And I’m not disappointed at all. ;)

Check out the recipe and Jessica’s perfect looking rugelach on her blog, My Baking Heart.  She is hosting today along with Margaret from The Urban Hiker. 

I’m so happy to be taking this opportunity to bake from Baking With Julia along with the rest of the Tuesdays With Dorie groupies.  Can’t wait for more!

Momofuku Milk Bar’s Blueberry and Cream Cookies—Secret Recipe Club

One of my favorite things is cookies.  Who didn’t know that?  Raise your hand, or maybe you shouldn’t admit it if you didn’t know. :)  So when I have a new blog given to me for the Secret Recipe Club, one of the first things I search for on the blog is cookies.  After looking at all the cookies, I then look at other goodies like brownies, cakes, pies, etc.  I can’t help it.  Don’t get me wrong.  I look at all the savory dishes, too.  But I always seem to settle on a dessert.  I just want to remind you that my family pretty much usually eat healthy, nutritious meals.  I’m not making that up.  We like a little sweet treat, too!

For the Secret Recipe Club this month I actually chose a couple recipes to make.  The first one I went with from the blog I was given, which is Tessa’s blog, The Cookin' Chemist was for her Grandma's Chocolate Zucchini Cake.  I made the cake one day and decided to make cupcakes.  The cake is one of those tried and true classic grandma cakes with zucchini as the star and chocolate playing a nice background role.  And I learned something when I made this recipe.  Do not keep your canola oil and extra virgin olive oil right next to each other in the same cupboard!  I unknowingly grabbed the EVOO instead of canola and put it in the cake batter.  As I was scooping out the batter into the cupcake liners, I thought it had a strange smell to it.  After a little taste, it dawned on me that I’d used the wrong oil. 

I was happy to find out that the cupcakes were actually really good and the EVOO was barely detectable.  But for some reason after that, I decided to make another recipe for my SRC post today.  I was taking pride in the fact that with the zucchini cake, I was actually following Tessa’s grandma’s recipe exactly—until I made the little mishap with the oil.  At least the cupcakes were still edible and the boys liked them and didn’t even know they had zucchini in them!  I ended up only taking one picture of an unfrosted cupcake, but go check out Tessa’s cake on the link above.  I plan to make the cake again soon!

The cookies that I decided to make from Tessa’s blog were the Momofuku Milk Bar Blueberry and Cream Cookies she’d made from the September 2010 issue of Bon Appetit Magazine.  I halved the recipe and changed things up just a little with less sugar and a little more flour, as I have been doing lately because I think it really helps with our higher altitude here. 

The different, interesting and fun thing about this recipe is that it has “milk crumbs” in it.  You first make a crumb mixture with dry powdered milk, flour, a little sugar and cornstarch and prepare it like you would a crumble or streusel and then bake it on a baking sheet until they are crispy.  (I forgot to photograph those.)  Those crumbs  and some dried blueberries are then mixed in to the cookie dough.  The recipe says to bake the cookies at 375 degrees for 20-22 minutes!  If I would have done that, they would have burned to a crisp.  I tried the cookies many different ways for fun.  Once the cookie dough is made and the cookies are scooped onto a baking sheet, they are supposed to be chilled for 24 hours.  I decided to bake a few without any chilling time first.

These cookies that were not chilled first were baked for only 12 minutes of the suggested 20-22 minutes.  They are brown and crisp.  I’m not sure if the 20-22 minute bake time is a typo from the magazine or what.  Tessa also mentioned that the baking time was too long and maybe that the oven temperature was too high.  I know that many people like a good, crisp cookie.  The recipe also suggested that the cookies will really spread as they bake.  These didn’t spread THAT much.

After the 24 hours chill time, I baked more of the cookies, but only baked them for 10 minutes—more to our liking.  They are really good.  I’m not totally in love with the milk crumbs, they do add something strange to the cookies, but was pleased with how they ultimately turned out.  Well, before adding blueberries to all of the cookie dough, I reserved some for playing around with and added some tart dried cherries and white chocolate.

Those turned out good!  But guess which my favorite variation is?  In some of the cookie dough with the cherries, I added some dark chocolate and I must say, those are my pick for the winners!

Get the recipe for these here on Tessa's blog!  They really are a nice cookie as it’s fun to try something different!  Check out the round up of recipes posted today from Group A down below!

Banana Peanut Butter Cookies with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Reese’s Peanut Butter Easter Eggs

Today is National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day!  Peanut butter is one of the things I love, so I’m in!

These Banana Peanut Butter Cookies are the cookies I made to celebrate.  I’ve made them before a number of times.  They are one of my favorite cookies!  One of the things I love most about this is they are made with whole wheat flour and have no butter—that cancels out the sugar and the candy, right?  Hello?  It cancels it out enough that I consider them a once-in-a-while treat and a great way to use up those overripe bananas on the counter.  Today I didn’t just throw in Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, I also added some Reese’s Peanut Butter Easter Eggs that I bought recently.  Talk about kicking up the fun and flavor of these cookies!

I got this recipe a number of years ago from Jenny at Picky Palate and I actually take no credit for these myself.  They were all her own doing and I really haven’t changed the recipe much.  Check out her post!  These cookies are easy to make and the banana and peanut butter go great together!  Throw a little chocolate in there and you have a perfect trio!  Since these cookies are made with healthy whole wheat flour and have no butter and you’d like to try to keep them even more healthy, try adding some chopped dark chocolate instead of peanut butter cups or candy!  That sounds like a plan to me!

Banana Peanut Butter Cookies with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Peanut Butter Easter Egg Candies, by Katrina—adapted from Jenny at Picky Palate

1 cup mashed overripe banana

1/2 cup granulated sugar (100 grams)

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed (110 grams)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I used Skippy Natural) (128 grams)

1  1/2 cups whole wheat flour (252 grams)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

12 regular-sized Reese’s peanut butter cups, chopped (they are easier to cut when frozen for even 15 minutes or so first)

1 cup Reese’s peanut butter Easter Eggs, chopped (6 oz.) *optional  Reese’s Pieces work, too

additional sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the bananas and sugars.  Add the vanilla, egg and peanut butter and beat to combine.  In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and stir until combined.  Stir in the chopped peanut butter cups and candy.  Scoop balls of the cookie dough into the sugar and roll to coat evenly.  The dough is quite sticky and this helps it roll into round balls.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Let cool on baking sheet for a couple minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely.