Saltine Toffee Crunch and Bye-Bye Sammie's Hair

Saw these Saltine Toffee Crunch cookie/candy treats floating around the blog world a few times and liked that they are SO easy to make and everyone was raving about how DELICIOUS, so I decided to make them.

Let's just say, they don't nickname it "crack" for nothing.  It is addicting.  I promptly wrapped them up for giveaways!  A little shout out to a fellow blogger friend, Pamela at Cookies with Boys for her great write up and pictures of this crunchy, munchy, sugary concoction.  Go see hers on the link here, she's got some great photos of the "cookies" in the making. 

You can also find the recipe on Allrecipes.  It's so simple and quick, so here it is.

Saltine Toffee Crunch (that's my name for it, at Allrecipes, it's called Saltine Toffee Cookies)

4 oz. saltine crackers (1 and a half sleeves or so)

1 cup butter

1 cup dark brown sugar (light would work, too)

2 cups (1 pkg.) semi sweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil.  Lay crackers out on sheet in one layer.  In a medium sized saucepan, melt butter and bring to boil with the brown sugar.  Boil for 3 minutes.  Pour over crackers.  Bake for 5 minutes.  Sprinkle chocolate chips on hot, bubbly crackers.  Spread evenly when melted.   Top with nuts (or sprinkles, as I did on some!)  Break apart into pieces.

  

You know you want some.  ;)  Come closer, I'll show you....

You know that buttery toffee candy everyone makes for the holidays every year?  This tastes just like it, with a little bit more salty taste from the crackers, but it's much more simple to make because you don't have to sweat over a hot stove while the butter/sugar mixture comes to temperature.  I'm just saying, try it, you'll be an addict, too!  I'll sponsor you, if you'll sponsor me.  jk

Stay tuned for more cookies.

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It's getting cut again, and while I dearly love his curls, there just sometimes when it's really, really "bad".  Not even this picture can show you what I mean.  And so, the appointment has been set.

And here he is doing his new favorite past time.  I was in the kitchen and looked over at him and just thought he couldn't be any cuter with his long scraggly hair, almost in his eyes.  I took some horrible pictures, but here's a few anyway.  (I need to learn how to take pictures correctly in our very sunny, bright dining room.)

He loves this play doh ice cream factory and is doing quite well not putting play doh in his mouth.  Now if I can just get him to stop throwing it!

TWD--Buttery Jam Cookies and Chocolate Brownie Trifle

This week's recipe from Dorie's book, Baking From My Home To Yours is for Butter Jam Cookies and was chosen by Heather of Randomosity and the Girl.   I was going to skip this week, but decided today to just make the cookies anyway.  The verdict?

These cookies, in my opinion, are not the greatest.  They are just okay.  I was surprised that there wasn't more to them, but hey, they've got butter and jam, so they totally live up to their name.  I thought mine seem a bit dry and plain, so I did a few things to cheer them up.  There is some ginger in the cookies, but I can't taste it, also the apricot jam.  You can see it, but I don't feel like it really added anything to the cookie.  These aren't really as buttery as I thought they'd be and didn't spread out.  Still, that said, and they'll be fine on a multi-cookie holiday tray! 

 

See.

I made some like jam thumbprint cookies with apricot and raspberry jam and sprinkled some toasted walnuts and pecans on them.   I also happen to have a bunch of almost-gone bags of Hershey's Kisses left and thought it would be fun to try some of them on the cookies.  So, no--the candy corn Kisses don't really fit the holiday, but I wanted to try them anyway.  The orange kisses are the pumpkin spice ones that were out briefly over the fall and the cool, festive ones are candy cane Kisses (just don't tell anyone those have been in my cupboard since last Christmas.  Gasp!)  You'd never know it and I think they look cute.  I actually haven't tried tasting most of them, but the plain cookies were okay, not bad, so I'm sure they're even better with all the fun tops!

That concludes TWD for this week.  Thanks Heather for another addition to the holiday cookies!  Click here and check out all the other baker's Buttery Jam Cookies.

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Quickly, just wanted to show you a Chocolate Brownie Trifle I made as we went to dinner at some friend's house last night and I made dessert.  So simple!  I quickly made a batch of Anna's One Bowl Cocoa Brownies, you could also use a boxed brownie mix.  I crumbled pieces of brownie in the bottom of the bowl, then layered it with Jell-o pudding and Cool Whip.  Now usually, this trifle has you also layer Heath toffee bits in it, but my kids don't really like those and I thought it would be fun to let everyone choose what they wanted to add, so I made six little cups of toppings, including, toasted, chopped pecans, walnuts, toffee bits, mini chocolate chips, marshmallows, mint chips, and my kid's favorite--sprinkles!  The trifle was a big hit and yummy!

I meant to take pictures when the kids and everyone made their cupfuls of this, but forgot.  Yummy!

White Chocolate Gingerbread Blondies and Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have seen these particular blondies all over the blog world and they looked so good, so much that I had to give them a try.  I wanted something gingerbread like, but I didn't want it to be cakey!  These live up to every picture I've seen of them (and they all look so good!).  A lot of the recipes I've seen also call for walnuts, which I personally would have LOVED, but I made these without the nuts.  Still, darn-tootin' good (don't ask me where I get some of my descriptions!).   I cannot remember which recipe I decided on (sorry), but I am pretty sure there is a recipe on Martha Stewart's website.  This recipe called for baking these in a 17x12 inch baking sheet, which I do not have, so I halved the recipe and made them in a 13x9 inch cake pan. 

Here is the recipe as I made it.

White Chocolate Gingerbread Blondies

1 cup plus 5 tablespoons all purpose flour

1/2 plus 1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 plus 1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 plus 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup plus 1/8 cup (2 T.) brown sugar

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 egg plus 1/2 an egg yolk (I just realized I didn't halve the yolk and the recipe was fine!)

1/2 plus 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

2  1/2  tablespoons unsulfured molasses

5 oz. white chocolate, coarsely chopped (or use chips)

1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped (optional, which I would have put them in)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 13x9 inch baking pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.   Set aside.  In medium sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and spices.  Set aside.

Beat butter and sugars with an electric mixer on medium high speed until fluffy.  Scrape sides of bowl.  Add egg and yolk, beating well.  Beat in vanilla and molasses until well combined.  Scrape sides of bowl again.  With mixter on low, gradually add the dry ingredients and beat just until combined.  Stir in white chocolate.

Spread batter evenly into prepared pan.  Bake until edges are golden, about 25 minutes.  (I took mine out at 23 minutes.)  Let cool completely in pan on wire rack.  Remove from pan using edges of foil to lift it.  Cut into desired sized squares on a cutting board. 

These have that perfect holiday flavor and are just like a gooey blondie with yummy spices added. Happy Holiday Baking!

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You probably saw on my last post (if you didn't, GO LOOK!)  ;), but you probably saw the Mint Truffle Molten Lava Chocolate Chip Cookies I made, well, just thought I'd show you that I also made another whole batch of these cookies using some Guittard Mint Chips I'd found.  The cookies were amazing--well, it's because I used THIS RECIPE.  I will not tire of this New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe.  Some say that it just isn't worth it to have to purchase and use cake flour and bread flour instead of all-purpose flour, but I say if you really want a GOOD chocolate chip cookie, this is it!   There really is something to using those two flours, because I (as others have), have tried the recipe using all purpose flour instead and they just didn't come out the same.  I don't (well, sometimes, but usually don't) chill the dough as the recipe suggests, but it does make a great cookie just a little bit better when you do!  So, I whipped up another batch of these and besides adding one package of semi-sweet chocolate chips, I also added almost a full bag of these:

I have a few things to say about these chips.  One, I don't like the color--it's a little too hospital scrubs-like.  The green color is off---see----

And two, they aren't chocolate mint, they are just mint.  I prefer these--

That said, the cookies turned turned out great.  I made a few of the molten cookies like before, but made at least 32   2 oz. cookies that I took to a cookie exchange.  I'm not bragging, really--but I just had to share THE RECIPE again, because people keep asking me what this magical recipe is that I use so often.  So here it is--on the link above that says THIS RECIPE.  Great Cookie!

Mint Chocolate Chip Truffles Molten Lava Cookies! Aahhhh, So Good!

Okay, I feel like I say this way too often, but oh my goodness--this is THE cookie (or at least right now).  I recently gave you these:  Molten Lava Chocolate Chip Cookies

I thought there could be nothing better and well, I LOVE these!  What a treat!  Then today, I tell you, I did it again and am in love all over again, for real this time.  Last time it was just puppy love, a crush, let's say.  But this, THIS time, it's forever, Baby!   ; )

Now, after taking some of the best cookie dough, that would be this one, which to me is just The Ultimate, I went with the no-chill option and put these little delights in with about a pound of regular semi-sweet chocolate chip.

I really wasn't expecting to like these as much as I do--make that--did.

I put a big gob of dough in the ramekin, then added two of these babies to the top (three would be good, too!):

Then, I covered them with more dough.  Oh! 

I baked the babies for 13 minutes (last time I did 15 minutes and decided I wanted them just a tad more gooey).

These Mint Truffle Kisses are really good.  But a warm, melty one--heaven.  The cookie "dessert" is just a wonderful, perfect HOLIDAY treat.  You could really bump them up with ice cream and such, but I just cut one open to see inside and ate a piece of it.  DELICIOUS!

*Small disclaimer--I know I don't have to mention this, but I'm going to.  Just for the pictures sake, I melted one truffle slightly and had it melt there in the center of the cookie before taking the picture.  When I cut in to it, it wasn't actually oozing out like that (that's why I think three truffles would be better than two), but with the mint chips, there's definitely enough mint flavor.  The cookie was just slightly warm.  If you served them more warm and fresh from the oven, the truffles inside would be a bit more melty than mine was for the picture.  And the cookie itself--perfect!  Just the right amount of doneness/under doneness!

That's all, for now.  But really--need there be more?  I think not.   I said I was "in love", but let's just call this a forbidden love, see I REALLY should NOT eat this.  I gave four of them to my friend for her birthday (baked six), told Kevin to eat this one and stuck another in the freezer.  I'm interested to see how well they freeze and thaw for another time.

Sweet dreams!

TWD--Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies And Final Chance for Chocolate!

Before I forget, head on over to Baking Delights and enter to win Marye's last giveaway basket of Hershey's Chocolate goodies!  Wait, don't go yet, read this first, then go!

Tuesday's With Dorie for this week was a wonderful sugar cookie that was fun to make and yummy!  Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies, on page 146-147 of Dorie's wonderful book, Baking From My Home To Yours.  It was chosen by Ulrike of Kuchenlatein.  You can see her cookies on the link and get the recipe for these simple to make and too-easy to eat cookies!

Who doesn't love an iced, decorated sugar cookie?  These were great.   Dorie suggested "playing around" with flavor in these, possibly adding some lemon or orange zest or even cinnamon.   I, like Dorie's grandmother, do not toy with a good sugar cookie.  I had a roommate years ago who always put lemon extract in her sugar cookies, it was always just a tad, but to me made them taste funny.  I just like them sugar flavored! ; )  My roommate, Mary, and I always "fought" about whose cookies were better.  Hard to say, all of our friends would gobble them all up without a problem.  But I still say--mine were better!  I always need to let you know what while this recipe from Dorie's grandmother is just fine and tasty, I still like my tried and true sugar cookie recipe better.  I'm not sure where my mom got her recipe, but we've both been using it for years and it is great.  I will post it another day.  This post is about Dorie's recipe. 

It really was simple to make and I had no troubles rolling out the dough and cutting cute little cookies with it.  Sometimes others complain that the dough just won't cooperate when they  make sugar cookies, but that was not an issue here.  Dorie insists that you chill the dough for two hours before rolling.  I suggest then letting the dough sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes before rolling it.  I thought it was a bit tough to roll.  And for kicks, I also made a log out of some of the dough and tried the good old fashioned way of just cutting the log into circles.  I made a few that way, but seriously--it's just not as fun as rolling out the dough and cutting it with cookie cutters--even if you're just going to cut circles.  You also don't get nice and perfectly round circles. 

I made these cookies for the ornament exchange party I talked about in my last post and I wanted to make a lot, so I used some cute new tiny cookie cutters I recently bought--there's cute little white gingerbread men that look like snowmen, holly leaves, Christmas trees,  and angels--that look like doves.  There is also a candy cane cutter, which I used for the Strawberry Fudge and a bell shaped cutter that I thought didn't really look like bells, so I didn't use that one.  Anyway, I'm rambling. 

  

My favorites have to be the cute little snow guys.  They were all fun to make, but did take me about two hours just to frost and decorate them.  The holly leaves look a little bumpy because I was trying to make the leaf vein marks in them, but the icing spread out enough that you cannot tell.   All the cookies you see in the photos are not all the cookies.

A few people at the ornament party asked me about the icing.  I like it because it dried smooth and hardened so the cookies can be stacked well.

Here is the icing recipe as I made it this time.  (I often don't measure things for this and just add a little of this and a little of that to the main ingredient--powdered sugar.

Sugar Cookie Icing

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons butter

3-4 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon corn syrup

1/4-1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

pinch salt

food coloring

Combine all together in electric mixer except milk.  When it is all incorporated, add the milk a tablespoon at a time until desired consistency.  The icing is not quite such that you could just dip the cookies, I like to spread it on, but if you want to dip it, add enough liquid until you are able to do so.

I first frost all the cookies that I wanted to be white, then separated some of the icing and made red (I really only did a few of the round cookies in red) and with the rest made green.  Then I had a ball with the sprinkles and decorating.   

I had a lot of fun with this week's TWD!  Thanks Ulrike!

Cranberry Bliss Bars, Peanut Butter Crunch Balls, Peppermint Bark, Strawberry Fudge--On With The Show....!

Oh my, so many things to tell!  And oh, so little time.  Deep breath.  Okay.

A bunch of lady friends and I got together (it's a yearly tradition here) and we had a "white elephant" Christmas ornament exchange party.  It's so fun every year to see all the Christmas ornaments everyone picks out and to see which you'll end up with.  We take turns picking a wrapped gift (ornament) to open and going around the room, at which time each person can decide to either pick another gift or steal from someone who has already opened one if they really want that ornament.   There are always so many neat, fun, festive ornaments.  After one has been "stolen" two times, it cannot be taken again.  We have a great time with that and then what else, lots of chatting and FOOD!  This one seems to have been "the star of the show", and I'm just talking about the things I made.  Lots of other gals made some yummy stuff, too--my kind of stuff-like veggies and dips and fresh fruit and Chex Muddy Buddies!  Yum!  There was a lot of food and it was ALL good!  I forgot to photograph the spinach/artichoke dip I made, but stay tuned for the recipe!  It was SO easy to make.   Bliss, back to bliss!   

Cranberry Bliss Bars

I got the recipe for these from none other than my baking blogger pal, Anna at Cookie Madness.  She made them a month or two ago and I always thought they looked great and kept them in the back of my mind for a time when I thought they'd be great.  While for some reason, I felt like there was something missing, like a nut or something, everyone else thought they were GREAT!  Anna mentioned that this is a clone that has been going around for a bar cookie sold at Starbucks.  Here is the recipe as I made them, but you can get Anna's and see hers here.  I made them almost exactly as Anna, but used a 15x10 baking sheet and I think she used a 9x13, so I ended up doubling the frosting and toppings.  My recipe below already has the amounts doubled.

Cranberry Bliss Bars

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or orange extract--which would really be good)

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4-1/2 teaspoon salt (if using unsalted butter)

1 teaspoon ground ginger

3/4 cup dried cranberries

3/4 cup white chocolate chips

FROSTING:

6 oz. cream cheese, softened (I used 1/3 less fat)

4 tablespoons butter, softened

5  1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or orange extract)

TOPPING:

2/3 cup dried cranberries, chopped

2-3 tablespoons grated orange rind  (add to the cranberries when chopping)

2/3 cup (4 oz.) white chocolate chips, or chopped chocolate (I used Baker's white chocolate)

1 teaspoon canola oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 15x10 inch baking sheet with parchment paper or No-Stick foil (love this stuff!).

Beat together butter and sugars until fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla (or orange extract) and beat until combined.  Add the flour, baking powder,  ginger and salt and mix just until combined.  Stir in the cranberries and white chips.  Do not over mix.

Spread batter in prepared baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes.  (Mine only took 15, Anna suggests 23-24 min. for the 15x10, so start checking after 15 minutes with a toothpick inserted in the center.  It should come out mostly clean.)  Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the frosting, beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy.    Add vanilla (or orange) and powdered sugar and beat until frosting is fluffy.  You  may want to add a teaspoon or two of milk if you'd like.  I did!  Spread evenly over cooled bars.

Topping:  Use a zester to remove the outer orange from the rind of an orange.  Chop the dried cranberries coarsely.   Sprinkle the cranberry/orange zest over the frosted bars.

For the final topping,  melt the while chocolate and oil in 20 second increments in a microwave safe bowl.  Put a plastic sandwich bag inside a small glass and open it up.  Pour the melted chocolate in the bag, let all the extra air out of the bag and zip it up.  Snip a tiny hole in one corner of the bag and drizzle the chocolate over the bars.  To remove the bars from the pan, pick it up the by the overhung edges of parchment or foil and set them on a cutting board.  I like this method much better than cutting the bars in the pan, but either works.

 

I did really like the added orange flavor to the bars and would probably try them next time with orange extract instead of vanilla.  Obviously the bars aren't as thick making them in a 15x10 pan as they would be in a 9x13, but it works great for a crowd!

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I also made some yummy (who could resist these!) Peanut Butter Crunch Balls.  I found the recipe for these at Jenn's Baking Chamber.  Man, she makes some yummy looking stuff!  These were quick and easy and de-licious, especially if you are a peanut butter/chocolate lover!  I made these exactly as her recipe stated.  The recipe made about 50 balls.  I covered about 3 dozen in chocolate and threw the rest in the freezer for another time.

Peanut Butter Crunch Balls

4 tablespoons butter

2 cups mini marshmallows

2 tablespoons peanut butter (your choice)

2 cups crispy rice cereal

1 cup peanut butter chips

2 cups (1 package) milk chocolate chips (you can use semi-sweet, too, but I like milk chocolate with peanut butter the best)

Melt butter in medium sized saucepan over low heat.  Add marshmallows and peanut butter and continue melting stirring constantly until melted and well combined.   Remove from heat and add crispy rice cereal and stir until mixed together completely.   Add peanut butter chips and stir until melted in and mixed together.  Form balls (whatever size you want, but I did them fairly small-about 1 teaspoon and set them on wax paper on a baking sheet.  Your hands will get pretty greasy--but it's fun!  I then put the balls in a very cold place (our garage sizes "refrigerator"--gotta love winter for that reason!)  You could refrigerate them or even freeze them, or also coat them in chocolate immediately.

Melt the chocolate in a microwave safe dish in 20 second increments.  Roll each ball in chocolate and set on wax paper.  Cool in refrigerator or garage! ;) 

 

YUM!

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Next I made a quick palate cleansing peppermint bark.  So simple and minty and Christmas-y!  I got the recipe for this from The Hungry Housewife.  Leslie is yet another great blogger, baker/cook and beautiful lady who makes me laugh when she posts things on her blog.  I halved her recipe and well, made a little boo-boo, but you'd never know it.  Her pictures of her bark are much better than mine, but it tastes divine!  I will post the recipe as I made it, but when you're done with my blog, click on the link to Leslie's and check out her bark and her BLOG!

Peppermint Bark

6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
6 oz. white chocolate, finely chopped
2 tablespoons whipping cream--(I forgot to add the cream and wanted to make this recipe because I had this exact amount to use up--oops!) 
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
3 oz. peppermint candies  (I used red/wht/green mini candy canes, broken up)  *See note.

Melt semi-sweet chocolate in glass bowl in microwave in 20 second intervals.  Stir until smooth (here's where you could/would also add the cream and the mint extract, I forgot and added the mint to the white chocolate and completely forgot the cream).  Pour melted chocolate on foil lined baking sheet and spread to about 10x6 layer.   Set in fridge (or cold garage on top of the deep freeze!) to harden.  In the meantime, melt white chocolate the same way.  Add mint extract.  Stir until smooth.  Pour the white chocolate over the hardened chocolate and smooth out to edges.  Sprinkle with candy mints.  Set back in cooler to harden.

*I beat the candy to a pulp (in a plastic sandwich bag) with a rolling pin, so much so that there was a lot of minty/sugary powder, so I added that (having strained it through a fine strainer) to the melted white chocolate so it wasn't wasted.  It added a little extra crunch and color and was yummy!

  

Festive!

 

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We're not done yet!  Last (for today), but not least.  I totally made this one up.  Feel pretty good about that, as I don't often just make up a recipe and really wasn't sure this was even going to work, but it did and it's good!   Strawberry Oreo Fudge!  What?  Yes, I concocted some "fudge" using strawberry flavored marshmallows, white chocolate and a container of strawberry frosting!  Really, I thought of this because I found the container of frosting (Pillsbury!) in our food storage and it was about to pass its expiration date, so I wanted to use it up.  I'm not sure why I bought it--we just aren't cake and frosting people here, but for some reason I bought it about a year ago and it sat in the storage for that long.  (Sometimes when cake mixes and frosting are really on sale, I buy a bunch!) 

 

Strawberry Oreo Fudge--I thought it was interesting that everything I used in this was a name brand item!

1--10 oz. container Pillsbury strawberry frosting

6 oz. Kraft strawberry marshmallows

6 oz. Hershey's Cookies N Creme Kisses, chopped up

4 oz. mini Oreos, cut in half

8 oz. 365 Degrees Brand White Chocolate Chips  (You could just use 14 oz. white chocolate if you can't find the Cookies N Creme Kisses)

2 oz. Hershey's Bliss Dark Chocolates, unwrapped (duh!) and chopped, melted

Melt mallows, kisses and white chocolate in large glass bowl in microwave in 30 second intervals.  When melted together and smooth, add the frosting and microwave another 30 seconds and mix together well.  Add chopped Oreos and stir carefully.  Pour and spread evenly in a no-stick foil or regular foil sprayed lightly with cooking spray) lined 9x9 baking pan. Let harden--that cold garage, I'm telling you, it's the best!

Cut into squares, but I used a cute little candy cane cookie cutter and drizzled them with 2 oz. of melted chocolate.

 

 

The Oreos were a great addition to the strawberry flavor.  Though Kevin doesn't even like traditional chocolate fudge and thought just hearing the words strawberry fudge was going to make him sick (I know HE'S the sick one!), a lot of people really liked this, including me.  Had to stay away from it, so not to keep eating them!  Try it sometime!

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Oh, you'd think that'd be enough, but noooo...there's more.  Stay tuned for the Tuesday's With Dorie addition to this goody feast---cute, iced and decorated sugar cookies!  See ya'll Tuesday!

WAIT!

Did you ever see a cuter little booty in too big 'a pants?

He was just a jammin' away on the little piano.  Until he heard the click of the camera and had to turn around for a pose.  Stay tuned, the hair is going to get cut.  ;(

Really, it's time, but I will be SO sad!

Love the morning bed head!

And one more booty shot, I can't resist!  And oh, if we gals could have curls like that! ; )

 

And that's a wrap folks.

   

 

Two GREAT Cookies, If You Like Coconut and Banana!

So I made two easy, yummy cookies today and couldn't wait to post them for your viewing pleasure--oh, that and so you'll have the recipe.   And the winner that gets to be first on this post is......drum roll.....okay, just kidding.  It's the Coconut Almond Chocolate Chip Cookie! 

Coconut Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies, adapted from Recipe4Living

1 pkg. (18.4 oz. box) white cake mix (I had a French Vanilla White Cake mix-yum!)

2 large eggs

1/3 cup canola oil

1 cup flaked coconut

1/2 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips (you can use regular ones, too)

1/3 cup almonds, toasted and chopped

In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the eggs and oil to the dry cake mix.  Beat together until combined.  Batter will be a little stiff.  Stir in coconut, chips and nuts.  Scoop dough onto parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.  Cool for 2 minutes on baking sheets, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes 3 dozen.

 

Goodness gracious, if you like coconut with just the right amount of chocolate and a slight crunch from the nuts, these cookies are perfect!  Really!  And did I mention how easy they were to make.  Sometimes you just gotta love a cake mix!   The don't taste "cakey" at all!   And thanks for the awesome poinsettia plate, Tes!  Love it!

NEXT, please.

Banana Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies, adapted from Martha Stewart Living

1/2 cup bread flour

1/2 cup cake flour (you can just use 1 cup all purpose flour, too!)

1/2 cup white whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt (I only used about 1/4 teaspoon because I was using salted butter)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup (1  1/2 sticks) butter, softened (I used Smart Balance 50/50 butter sticks for baking)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 large egg (I used 1/4 cup Egg Beaters with touch of yolk)

1  1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 large)

1 cup old-fashioned oats

8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 1  1/4 cups)

1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, toasted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Whisk together the flours, salt and baking soda in a medium sized bowl.  Set aside.  In bowl of electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Scrape sides of bowl.  Beat in egg and vanilla and mix well.  Mix in mashed banana.  Add dry ingredients and mix just until combined.  Stir in oats, chocolate chips and nuts with spatula.

Drop onto parchment lined baking sheets and bake for 9-11 minutes.  Cool on baking sheets for five minutes then remove to wire racks to cool completely.  Makes 3 dozen.

Great amount of banana flavor to a slightly oaty chocolate chip cookie.  These are a bit crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside, not too moist or cakey.  They're great and maybe a little healthy???  ; )

Have you made any good cookies lately?

 

TWD--Linzer Sables--And More Chocolate Chances at Baking Delights

This week's Tuesday's With Dorie recipe is for Linzer Sables.  A nutty, buttery cookie with a jam filling--or as Dorie also suggests in the book, a chocolate filling.  Ah, that's more like it!  Chocolate!  But I didn't just make my Linzer's with any old chocolate--it became apparent to me when I went and looked in my big freezer full of lots of nuts (they were on sale recently buy-one, get-one free!  So I stocked up)--anyway, the recipe suggests finely ground almonds, walnuts or hazelnuts.  I had forgotten that one of the bags of nuts I'd gotten was hazelnuts.  Ding, ding, ding!  I decided to make these cookies with the hazelnuts. 

Simple cookie to make--grind the nuts until finely ground, make the simple dough with butter, sugar and the usual dry ingredients mixed with the nuts.  Roll out between wax paper and chill the dough.  Then cut into whatever shapes you want.  Making sure you double each cookie to sandwich them and cut a cute hole in the center so you can see the filling oozing out.  Got it.  Did it.  Easy enough.  And I was loving the smell of these cookies baking with the toasty hazelnuts!  Dorie's recipe calls for some cinnamon and cloves and well, I just didn't want to have that spicy flavor mixed up with my chocolate filling.  So I left that out and added a touch of vanilla extract, just for kicks.

Now what's a hazelnut cookie to do for the ultimate filling?  Hmmm,  here's the little bare cookies (I halved the recipe by the way).

 

Okay, so I really knew the second I found my hazelnuts exactly what would go in the center of these cookies!

The delicious and oh so highly, I'm sure, nutritious Nutella Chocolate Hazelnut spread!

These are some happy little cookies now!

I really like these.  Oh, I also filled one with apricot jam and one with raspberry jam, just to see what I thought.  While both are good, they don't stand a chance with the Nutella.

Enough pictures?  Okay, one or two more, if you insist.

Yep, that oozing jam looks good and all, but the Nutella is the star of the show, only problem was I didn't realize how low I was with the jar of it until I opened it ready to fill the cookies.  I made due and the cookies are great!  Guess I'd better run to the store for more Nutella---soon!  ; )

Perfect little cookies as an addition to your holiday baking!  What, you want the recipe?  Check out noskos'  (from the Netherlands!) blog  Living the Life for the recipe, he picked the recipe this week from Dorie's book, Baking From My Home to Yours.  Get the book!  Check out all the other 300+ baker's Linzer's on the TWD blog list.

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