TWD—Cranberry Lime Galette with Chocolate

Surprise!  I added chocolate the the Cranberry Lime Galette for Tuesday’s With Dorie this week.  This week the recipe was chosen by the gals at Celestial Confections.  They’ll have the recipe on their blog.

I put off making this until yesterday, which I kept debating whether I should do it or not.  Afterall, I did just made three bundt cakes.  But I had everything I needed for the galette, including the dough.  I had some leftover pieces from of dough (two small ones) from a pie I’d made recently to take to a ladies church activity.  The pie I made was Ina Garten's Deep Dish Apple Pie.  I’d made this once before a year or two ago.  This is a great apple pie and her crust is perfect. 

  

So I rolled out the two small pieces of leftover dough.  Whipped up the filling ingredients, which were…easy as pie!  In place of the nuts suggested in Dorie’s recipe, I used pistachios.  I also used graham cracker crumbs instead of bread crumbs.  I just happened to have some.  The reason I decided to add some chocolate is because the only dried cranberries I had were part of a mix of cranberries, pistachios and chocolate chunks.  I chopped it all up and added it to the cranberry mixture.  Then I decided that wasn’t quite enough chocolate.  So I chopped up some bittersweet chips, only a couple tablespoonfuls.  I sprinkled the top of each with some nuts and chocolate as well as putting some on the bottom of the crust.

The two little galettes baked up perfectly.  Except that I didn’t photograph one of them that decided to have a little dam burst on part of it, so it was a little ugly.  That’ll teach it—it got eaten first!  I still have part of it and the other one and lots-o-cake. 

I really like the flavors in this galette—tart cranberries with a hint of lime, pistachios, and chocolate, I think it goes well and helps cut a little of the tartness from the cranberries.  I also like the bit of chew the dried cranberries add.  I would make this again. 

Check out the bundt cakes I made for National Bundt Cake Day in honor of Mary, The Food Librarian, oh yeah, and because it was my birthday, too!

National Bundt Cake Day—Cinnamon Ripple Sweet Potato Bundt Cake, Red Velvet Bundt Cake and Banana Bundt Cake

It’s all been building up and building up to this—the actual day.  My birthday National Bundt Cake Day is finally here.  Mary, The Food Librarian has been rockin’ out bundt cakes for 30 days leading up to today.  She loves bundts, big bundts.  It has been such a yummy experience to see what bundt she’ll post next.  I’m not as cool as Mary, so I have only made four bundt cakes during the last month, but does it count for more that I made three of those in the last 24 hours?

I’m not sure if you got that today is also my birthday. (Ha, that’s just for you Megan---it’s. my. birthday.  Should I spell it out?  hehe kidding, I’m kidding.)  Anyway, just for fun, I made two bundt cakes yesterday as we had people over to eat cake and sort of celebrate then since Kevin had to work until late tonight.

I often have the Food Network on in the background of whatever I’m doing in the kitchen.  On Saturday, Paula Deen’s show was on and she was making a Cinnamon Ripple Sweet Potato Cake.  It looks great.  I decided that I wanted to make that bundt.

  

There are supposed to be pecans in the cinnamon ripple of the cake.  I toasted them.  Finished the cake, put the batter in the pan, added the ripple, then more batter, stuck the bundt in the oven, turned around and saw the pecans still sitting on the sheet pan I roasted them on.  Ugh.  The only other change I made to the cake was Paula’s cake had a white rum glaze on it and I decided to do a chocolate glaze.  Since I forgot the pecans inside, I sprinkled a bunch on the top.  Also just for kicks, I did add some mini chocolate chips to the ripple and the top of the cake.  The only other change I made was Paula’s recipe called for sour cream and I used Greek yogurt instead.

We liked the cake okay, but it didn’t have enough sweet potato flavor.  There were also some spices in it, but not enough.  It almost just tasted like a yellow cake with the cinnamon ripple and chocolate glaze.

I very much preferred this Marbled Chocolate Sweet Potato Cake I made a few weeks ago.

Then I also decided to finally make a Red Velvet Bundt Cake.  I have never made any kind of red velvet cake before.  This recipe I used is from the LA Times, which was a recipe they posted from Kiss My Bundt Bakery.

The cake is sure pretty and love the red color.  All of us that ate some of the cake weren’t super thrilled with it.  It tasted like the main flavor was oil.  (The recipes uses oil instead of butter.)  It didn’t really taste like the red velvet cake I’ve had before.  It does make me want to try some other recipes sometime.

 

The best part of the red velvet cake was the cream cheese frosting, which I changed a bit from the Kiss My Bundt recipe.  I added more powdered sugar than the recipe called for.

The cake was really oily.  Bummer.  But I’m glad I tried a red velvet cake finally and I’m sure I’ll try some other recipes.

After feeling a little disappointed about the two bundt cakes I made for my birthday National Bundt Cake Day, I decided to make another one today.  I also wanted to use the new bundt cake pan Kevin got me. 

So I whipped up half a recipe of one of my favorite cakes---Lots-of-Ways Banana Cake from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours.  The half recipe made six perfect individual bundts.  This pan is great—the cake just slid right out and all I did was spray it with cooking spray.

That’s my kind of bundt!

I love banana cake.  I just put a nice dollop of some of the cream cheese frosting left over from the red velvet cake in the center of each one and sprinkled on some pecans. 

That’s my bundt story.  Check out all the big bundt love on Mary’s blog!  (Thanks for the birthday shout out, Mary.   So sweet of you.)

Thanks also to everyone who came and left a nice birthday greeting on my surprise post from Kevin today!  I feel super blessed.  That really made my day!

A Special Birthday Message:

As many of you may already know, today is Katrina's birthday (I don't dare divulge her age). She doesn't know that I am writing this and so this will be a fun surprise for her. I should probably introduce myself. I am the occasionally mentioned, the rarely photographed (and those rare occasions tend to involve me making a fool of myself), and incredibly blessed husband of Katrina.

Without a doubt, asking Katrina to marry me over 13 years ago is the best decision I have ever made. She is an amazing wife, mother, and friend....and as all of you know, she's not too bad of a baker :-) .

I would like to thank each of you for being such a great group of friends to my wife. She is always talking about how wonderful her blogging friends are and how much she loves associating with them. You represent an important part of her life which means a lot not only to her, but also to me.

Happy Birthday Katrina...."I love you" doesn't come close to expressing my true feelings.

Twelve Weeks of Christmas Cookies—Three For One Week!

This week for Twelve Weeks of Christmas Cookies (week 7), I give you not one, not two, but three more cookies.  I’m just nice that way.  You’re welcome. 

I’ve been playing around this week with making smaller-sized mini cookies.  They are fun.  I love that you end up with so many more cookies by making them so small.  The first cookies I made were some Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies I’d seen a few weeks back that Maria at Two Peas and Their Pod made.  They looked like a great chocolate chip cookie and I just can’t resist mini treats.  We’re having some friends over next week and I think it will be fun to put out lots of little mini foods. 

Well, beat me up, I just looked through my photos and realized I didn’t photograph any of the mini chocolate chip cookies.  Go see them over at Maria’s.  Mine looked just like hers.  I realize now why I didn’t take any pictures.  I only baked off a dozen of the cookies and froze the rest of the dough in ready-to-bake minis.  I’ll have to take a few pictures when I bake off the rest next week.  Great cookie, Maria, thanks!

So the second cookie I made this week were some Chocolate Gingersnap Cookies that I’d found last year over at Baking Bites.  I loved these when I made them last year and posted about them.

 

I followed Nicole’s recipe except that I didn’t have any crystallized ginger, so I omitted that and added a little extra ground ginger.  I also just baked off one baking sheet of these in mini-size and have frozen the rest into mini size balls ready to bake.  Make these if you like ginger cookies-they are so good with chocolate!

 

And lastly (just for this week!), I made some mini Andes Crème de Menthe Cookies in mini-size as well.  Love these.  They are perfect.  This is also the recipe that is found on the back of the Andes mint baking pieces bag.  I followed it exactly. 

 

These are kind of like Lays Potato Chips, “no one can eat just one”.

I also froze probably another three dozen of these.  I think mini cookies are perfect for your Christmas cookie trays.  Wrap them in separate packaging, to keep the mint flavor/smell from getting in to all the rest of your goodies.  I’m silly that way.  I actually also think ginger/spice type cookies should be individually wrapped.  Just my little humble opinion.

  

Okay, I’m done.  There you have it—three for one.  Enjoy!  And look at all those other links below.  It’s coming, don’t say we didn’t warn you. ;)  Happy Holiday Baking!

Ghirardelli Decadence Cookies

When a recipe has chocolate (Ghirardelli is one of my favorites) in the title as well as “decadence”, I. am. there.  So when I saw this recipe, I knew I had to give these a shot.  I liked that the recipe was a little different from traditional cookies in that it only had a little bit of butter and two eggs.  The flavor, texture and decadence  for these cookies is all about the chocolate.  Currently my favorite chocolate chips of choice are Ghirardelli’s 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips.  And that is the chocolate called for in these cookies.  Here’s a link to the Ghirardelli Decadence Cookies found on their website.

I know, it’s a rarity around here, but get this, I actually followed a recipe just as it was written!  And then I proceeded to take so not-the-greatest photos of the cookies.  Sigh.  The cookies have nice thin, crackly tops and a fantastic fudgy chocolate flavor.  I love nuts and these are also full of nuts.  Walnuts or pecans, you choose.  I used walnuts this time, and they are good, but I actually like pecans better and think these would have been even better with pecans.

Ghirardelli Decadence Cookies, from Ghirardelli’s website (only the wording is adapted by Katrina, Baking and Boys!)

10 ounces 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips (divided use)

2 large eggs, room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups walnuts or pecans, chopped (I used walnuts)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Have baking sheets lined with parchment paper.  Whisk eggs, sugar and vanilla in a small bowl.  Set the bowl in a larger bowl of hot water until needed.  In another bowl, whisk the flour and baking powder and salt together.  Melt the butter and one cup (6 ounces) of the chocolate in a double boiler (or a glass bowl sitting on top of a saucepan) with only about 1 inch of barely simmering water.   Once chocolate and butter are melted, remove bowl from heat and whisk in the egg mixture.  Stir in the dry ingredients, nuts and remaining chocolate.  Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough/batter onto baking sheets about two inches apart.  Bake 10-12 minutes until the surface of the cookie looks dry and crackly, but the centers are still gooey.  Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes, then remove to cooling rack.  Makes 2 dozen.

After I’d printed off this recipe and decided to make them yesterday, my baking friend, Anna at Cookie Madness posted another double chocolate cookies on her blog and raised the question does anyone have an absolute favorite double chocolate cookie recipe.  The ones Anna posted sure look good and are a totally different recipe from this one from Ghirardelli.  I’m sure I’ll be trying it soon!  Do YOU have a favorite?  Do share, if so. 

TWD—Not-Just-For-Thanksgiving Apple Cranberry Shortbread Cake

This week  for Tuesday’s With Dorie, we made the Not-Just-For-Thanksgiving Cranberry Shortbread Cake that Jessica from Singleton In The Kitchen chose.  This is not a cake.  It’s called cake.  But it’s really just a great big double stuffed sugar cookie with a filling in the middle.  Not cake.  I’m not upset.  It was still good.

In the playing around section for the recipe, Dorie suggested making her caramelized apples as an option instead of the cranberry filling and though I’d just bought cranberries, I decided to use some Granny Smith apples that we had for the filling.  I’m always sold on the word caramelized and remember liking them when we made them for a previous recipe.  We’ll save the cranberries for next week!

“Cake batter” cookie dough was super easy to make.  Caramelized apples were also a cinch.  I used three Granny Smith apples and sliced them fairly thin.  After cooking the apples in some caramelized butter and sugar, I did think I’d play along with the cranberry theme and threw in half a cup to the mix.  I also sprinkled the top with turbinado sugar instead of regular sugar. 

Took a few photographs of this shortbread cake.  Ate a few bites.  Served the boys some ice cream for their snack and only Scott wanted to try this.  I liked it.  I actually could have kept slicing off little pieces of cake, but that is just not something I can do.  So the next day I had Kevin take the rest over to Cindy’s house.  This was a fun, different kind of dessert.  Not sure if I’d make it again.  You know, there IS no chocolate—but just a thought, instead of a fruit filling in the middle, what about caramel and chocolate.  Oh yes.  Then I’d really have to give it away!  Sure having fun with this TWD Group baking and making all the recipes in Dorie's book, Baking From My Home to Yours.  You can check out the other groupie’s “cakes” on the TWD link.

Peanut Butter Popcorn with Chocolate Drizzle

Here’s a super fast, easy, yummy treat for you to make for Peanut Butter Popcorn with Chocolate Drizzle (yes, the chocolate is optional, but uh, why would you not?) ;)

No, really, this was so fast and easy.  Besides the fact that we just had our neat, new popcorn maker out like last week and I could NOT find it, the rest took literally only about five minutes.  We finally found the popper in the strangest place.  Sometimes you’d think we’ve lived here for years, but no, we just moved here a few months ago.  Sigh.

I got the recipe for this Peanut Butter Popcorn from a friend of mine growing up.  I think we were probably only about 14 years old.  And I’d noticed over the years that I still had the actual recipe card she wrote and gave me (I think we were at a young women’s activity where we swapped recipes).  From time to time I’d see that card in my recipe box, the same box that also still holds some of the recipes from when I took a cooking class in 7th grade!  I remember that a lot of those recipes from school were not very good, just not the best recipes and having a bunch of 12-13 year olds make them, yeah, they just didn’t always turn out very good.  So why are they still in my recipe box?  I don’t know, it’s just kind of fun to keep them.  Maybe one of these days I’ll talk myself in to trying one of those old recipes.

Just out of the blue though, my friend, Patty, contacted me just to see if I happen to have a clue what her old recipe for peanut butter popcorn had in it.  She said over the years she couldn’t find the recipe and had tried many others, but never liked others as much as she remembered hers being like.  What are the odds that I actually have THE card with her writing on it.  I sent her a picture copy of the recipe.  We both were surprised that the recipe didn’t have butter.  In fact, it only had three ingredients, besides the popped popcorn.

Patty’s Peanut Butter Popcorn (with optional chocolate drizzle-adapted by Katrina, Baking and Boys!)

1/2 cup unpopped popcorn

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup light corn syrup

1/3 cup peanut butter (I used chunky)

2 ounces chocolate, melted

Pop the popcorn in an air popper and put it in a big bowl (Really, you could use a fat free microwave popcorn, probably two bags).  Heat sugar and corn syrup in a medium sized saucepan until the sugar is dissolved, I let it boil on medium for 1-2 minutes.  You just don’t want the sugar to start burning.  Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter.  Pour immediately over popcorn and stir to coat evenly.  Let cool just enough to eat.

After peanut butter mixture is cooled on the popcorn, drizzle with melted chocolate and let it harden.  (I stuck it in the fridge for a few minutes.)  Break up pieces that have clumped together.  Enjoy!

You could add peanuts to this, or I’d also thought of pretzels, M&M’s, there are a lot of things you could add to this popcorn that would be great additions.  This popcorn would also be a fun treat to bag up in cute packages and give away as gifts!  Thanks for the memory, Patty! ;)

***Later today, I made the peanut butter popcorn again and used Sugar in the Raw (turbinado) in place of the granulated sugar, agave nectar in place of the corn syrup and Adam’s all natural peanut butter and it’s just as good, if not better.  The peanut flavor is stronger, instead of just a super sweet flavor.  It also has a chewier texture.  So now, it’s even healthier!  Love it!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Cream Cheese Icing

You know you can’t resist one of these.  Do you like the smell of fresh baked bread in your home?  Do you like the smell of fall spices wafting through your home?  With these rolls, you get a continuous hit of both smells and it’s pretty divine.  The orange color of these Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls is really fun and festive as well.  Perfect fall treat.  I also like that they were perfect for using some of the large open can of pumpkin puree in my fridge.   I don’t know why I always buy the bigger cans as most recipes don’t call for using that much, but I suppose it is so I have to have an excuse to make different things using pumpkin.  Not a bad deal at all.

The rolls are as simple as any other cinnamon roll to make.  Some seem a little afraid of yeast dough.  Though I did work through some baking issues years ago, I’ve never really had a bad time with yeast.  I found the recipe for these over at Lori’s Recipe Girl blog.  She got the recipe from Amanda Simpon’s Food Porn Daily Cookbook.  It’s a new, delicious book with not only mouth-watering pictures, but recipes, too!  (You can enter to win the book on Lori’s blog until Sunday night!)

I changed a few things in the recipe, but not much.  It suggested baking the rolls in a 9x13 inch pan, but I used two 8-inch round pans.  I also used mostly whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose flour.  I just felt like it.  I cannot even tell and neither can anyone else in my family.  I like throwing a little extra fiber/nutrition in to goodies when I can.  And I changed the icing recipe a bit.   You can check out Lori’s adaptation from the recipe.  Here’s mine.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Cream Cheese Icing, By Katrina, Baking and Boys!, adapted from Recipe Girl and Food Porn Daily

Dough:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon  salt

1 cup unsweetened canned pumpkin puree

1 large egg

1/2 cup warm water

1 packet active dry yeast (I used 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast)

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

3 cups whole wheat pastry flour

3/4 cup all purpose flour (you could also just use 3 3/4 cups all purpose flour)

Filling:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup light brown sugar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (I will use only 1/8 teaspoon next time, but go with your tastes)

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

Icing:

3 ounces 1/3 less fat cream cheese, room temperature

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons Grade A pure maple syrup (the original recipe calls for 1/4 cup, I only had 2 T.)

1-2 tablespoons milk (I only used 1 as I like a thicker icing.)

1/4 teaspoon salt

Spray your baking pans with cooking spray (I used 2 8-inch round pans, but a 9x13 pan works great!).  Set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the butter, sugar, salt, pumpkin and egg for the dough and set aside.  In another bowl (small), whisk together the warm water, yeast and 1 tablespoon sugar.  Let sit for 5 minutes until the yeast is frothy.

Place the flour (all 3 3/4 cups) in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Add yeast and pumpkin mixture to the flour.  Mix on low with the dough hook until all the flour is incorporated and a sticky dough forms.  Knead with dough hook on medium speed for five minutes.  If the dough is too sticky (not forming a ball in the mixter), add a little more flour.  At this point I added about 1/4 cup more all purpose flour.

Form dough into a ball and transfer to a large bowl sprayed with cooking spray.  Roll the dough around the bowl to coat all sides with spray.  Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and place in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface into a 16 by 10 inch rectangle.  Keep making sure the dough is not sticking to the surface as you roll, lifting it and adding more flour if necessary. 

Spread the softened butter in a thin layer over the dough, leaving a small border on all sides.  Whisk together the brown sugar and spices and sprinkle it evenly over the buttered dough.  Roll the dough tightly from the long side until completely rolled up with open seam side down on the counter.   Slice the dough into about 1 1/2 inch pieces and arrange them in the prepared baking dish cut side up, leave a little space in between each one for room to rise.  Cover the pan with lightly sprayed plastic wrap and a kitchen towel.  Let rise for 30 minutes in a warm, draft-free place.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Remove towel and plastic wrap.  Bake until tops and edges are golden, 30-35 minutes.  Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool for at least 20 minutes before icing.  You can remove the rolls from the pan by inverting them onto another dish, or just leave them in the pan. 

Make the icing while the rolls are cooling.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat cream cheese until smooth.  Add maple syrup and salt and beat until incorporated.  Add one cup of powdered sugar and beat.  Add the other cup of sugar and mix well, it will make a stiff icing.  Add the milk slowly, a little at a time until the icing is the desired consistency.

Spread the icing over the rolls, or if it is thin enough, drizzle it on.  Serve.

 

You know you want a bite!

  

I should have put this on my last post, which was for some actual candy, Chocolate Covered Honey Almond Nougats, but forgot.  Scott made this while eating his lunch the other day and was pretty proud of it, so he wanted me to take a picture and put it on the blog.  Maybe I should make some pretzel candy.

Twelve Weeks of Christmas Cookies—Chocolate Covered Honey Almond Nougats (News about French Fridays With Dorie)

Just in case anyone is wondering, as I’m sure everyone is (ha), I have decided something about French Fridays With Dorie, the huge group of people cooking and baking along in Dorie Greenspan’s latest book, Around My French Table.  I still plan to cook and bake along when I can, but plan to post those things on a more rare occasion, at least for right now.  There is no specific requirements for the group, so check it out on the French Fridays link and cook/bake along. 

Now, it’s coming, I tell you, be ready.  Be prepared.  Even before Halloween was over, we were bombarded in the stores with Christmas.  Are you ready?  They sure want to make sure you are when you’re shopping.  I’m here, along with a bunch of other bloggers, to help you in the holiday baking department.  It’s the sixth week of the Twelve Weeks of Christmas Cookies!

Sixth week.  Do you realize what that means?  Don’t blink, the holidays are pretty much upon us.  Now that it’s actually November, I can start to get excited.  First there’s my birthday (What?  You didn’t know that was a holiday.  Well, it is here!)  Mary at The Food Librarian has even declared a month long craze over it.  Oh wait, she’s crazy about bundts, big bundts.  My birthday just so happens to be on National Bundt Cake Day, November 15.  For the second year now, Mary, who has an amazing love for bundts, has posted a bundt cake per day for the 30 days leading up to my birthday National Bundt Cake Day.  There are some great looking bundts over there.

So again, first there is my birthday, then Thanksgiving rolls around.  Or is it that I roll on to Thanksgiving from eating too much birthday cake?  After that, before you can even say ho, ho, ho it’s Christmas.  So a group of us are sharing ideas for treats.  I think it’s kind of fun to see all the ideas everyone is coming up with or even just all the good old traditional cookies and treats that are a good reminder of what people like. 

What I decided to do this week is make candy.  In the checkout line at the store last week, I picked up the Taste of Home holiday issue while I was waiting and flipped through the magazine.  It was a quick flip-through, but I saw some interesting candy that caught my eye.  You can get the recipe on the Taste of Home website for the Honey Almond Nougats.

The nougat was simple and took no time at all on the stove.  The honey, sugar and cornstarch boils to the soft-crack stage very quickly.  I might have even taken it slightly more than soft-crack.  I hadn’t gotten my thermometer out when I started the sugar and by the time I fumbled around a bit and found it, it was already just past the soft crack stage.  You can definitely taste the honey.  Cinnamon and ground almonds are added after the sugar is slowly beaten into some stiff peaked egg whites and left to beat for 10 minutes.  And just like that you have a bowl of nougat.  Once it is cool enough to touch (which also was in no time), you roll it into balls and roll them in some chopped almonds.  That’s it.

But if you know me, I couldn’t stop there.  I decided these just HAD to have chocolate.  So I melted some dark chocolate and added a little bit of shortening and dipped some of the balls of nougat into the chocolate.  These are really good!

I am certain I will be making these again. 

I ended up with some leftover melted chocolate.  It was only natural that it was used in making some chocolate covered nuts.  I used some deluxe mixed nuts.

I think a few pieces of homemade candy are great to have on holiday cookie trays and this was actually easier than I thought it was going to be.

Note—if you’re wondering what those cookies are on the tray with the candy, I also made Almond Roca Cookies that I saw on Donna’s blog, My Tasty Treasures.  I made some bigger ones with a drizzle of chocolate but also tried some much smaller, almost bite-sized with mini chocolate chips added to the dough.

Do there you have it, I’ve given you TWO ideas instead of just one this week.  Bake on!

Check out all the links below for even more ideas and happy baking (and shopping!).

TWD—Peanuttiest Blondies

***Oops, I accidentally posted early.  I hit publish instead of save.  Sorry.

I made the Peanuttiest Blondies a couple days ago that were chosen for Tuesdays With Dorie this week.  They were chosen by Nicole of Bakeologie and you can get the recipe for them on her blog.  These were super simple to make (one of the great things about bar cookies).  If you love peanuts and chocolate, you’ll love these blondies.

I used crunchy peanut butter and instead of 1 cup of peanuts, I used 1/2 cup Reese’s peanut butter chips and 1/2 cup dry roasted peanuts. (Dry roasted was all I could find at the grocery store.  Whatever.  These would have been fantastic with peanuts like THESE!  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, absolutely the best peanuts I’ve ever had were given to me by a neighbor in Kansas who had been to Virginia and gotten us some Whitley's Peanuts.  They have a great website and I really want some more of those peanuts, if they weren’t so darn expensive.  Someday I’ll get some more.

I used milk chocolate chips in these.  I just think milk chocolate goes with peanut butter—like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  I followed the recipe, except I omitted the cinnamon and baked these for 38 minutes.  The recipe says 40-50.  I think they could have even used a few minutes less.  I cut all the edges off that I thought were too crispy.  A bunch of these went in to the freezer as it WAS just Halloween and we’re kind of overloaded with sugar around here right now.

I’ve decided something for myself that is quite profound.  Just kidding.  But I think I like the chocolate/peanut butter combo when chocolate is the key flavor, rather than peanut butter taking center stage and chocolate just hanging out.  You know what I mean?  I actually just decided that when I looked up those peanuts I liked so much and the recipes I made with them.  I made a brownie-like bar with peanuts added.  (Link on THESE up a few paragraphs.)  Either way, these TWD Peanuttiest Blondies are really good and  I’d make them again sometime.  I like the idea Valerie at Une Gamine dans la Cuisine posted on the TWD P&Qs.  She covered her blondies with a chocolate ganache.  That sounds really good.

 

This would actually be a great recipe to use up some of that Halloween candy with, especially Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and/or Peanut M&Ms or any of the chocolate bars.  Go for it!  

Cookie Carnival---A Happy Halloween Cookie Pizza

Hope you all had a SWEET Halloween.  We have a lot of sweetness going on here at our house right now, that’s for sure.

Here’s the best photo I snapped of our Tricker and Treater.  (Scott and Sam)

For weeks before Halloween, whenever I’d ask Sam what he wanted to be he’d always say, “I just want to be a “treater with a bucket”.  Knowing he would not be putting up with me dressing him in any kind of fun, cute costume, he was just that, “a treater with a bucket” for Halloween.  Orange shirt (the front has a monster on it, so I couldn’t fit the word “treater” on the front.

Scott is in that phase of life where you want to trick-or-treat because you want the candy, but you don’t want to dress up anymore.  So using the brilliance of my friend, Suzanne and her idea, Scott was a “tricker” and Sam was a “treater” (with a bucket).  Then in trying to get them to pose for a quick picture, of course Sam wouldn’t cooperate.  In fact, he was screaming and throwing a fit.   So, so sad to have to take one little picture before heading out for treatin’ with a bucket.   People sure thought that was a cute idea though!

 

Here I’ll throw this picture of Sam in that I took a few days before Halloween after he’d eaten some chocolate pudding.

  

Parker was Ash from Pokemon which was a fun costume to make up, since it isn’t one you can just find available anywhere.  While we were in Idaho a few weeks ago, my mom helped me with the blue and white jacket.  I found a men’s white button up shirt at a second hand store and we used that for the sleeves and collar and mom sewed it to the t-shirt that we cut to work as the jacket.  Thanks, Mom!  I made the green gloves with some white knit gloves that I colored with permanent marker and cut out the fingers.  I searched hi and lo for a green backpack and finally found one.  Then I hand sewed the yellow and orange stripes on.  As well as the white on the red hat.   Cute Parker!

Taylor was the resident policeman and kept us safe through the night.  I love his missing front tooth!

  

Let’s close out October with a Halloween Cookie Pizza, which is our Cookie Carnival recipe this month.  The recipe is from the Hershey’s website.  I made the cookie pizza a couple weeks ago and am just now getting around to posting it.  The cookie was a big success.  The boys each had a slice  the evening I made it.  I ate one tiny little bite, then we took the rest over to Cindy’s house and gave the rest away.  I love to share the goodies I make and I love not eating too much of some of these things.  I knew I’d just keep eating too much of this “pizza”, so it had to go. ;)  Cindy and family later told me they LOVED the cookie pizza.  This is definitely a fun treat to make with so many different options for things to put on top of it.  I did switch up a bit from the recipe on Hershey’s, including using butter instead of shortening and white whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour because the unthinkable happened when I made this—I was out of all purpose flour!

Here’s my adapted version.

Halloween Cookie Pizza, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!, adapted from Hershey’s (linked above)

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 large egg

1 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour (I was out of all purpose flour!)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips, divided use

1/2 cup fall colored M&Ms

1 cup mini marshmallows

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Chocolate glaze*

Orange glaze**

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly spray a 12-inch pizza pan with cooking spray. 

Beat the butter and brown sugar together until well incorporated.  Add the egg, vanilla and water and beat for 1-2 minutes.  In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt.  Add to the creamed mixture and blend just until combined.  Stir in one cup of chocolate chips.  Spread the cookie dough evenly in the pan.  Bake for 12 minutes.  Remove from the oven  and sprinkle with the half cup of chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, pecans and M&Ms.  Bake for another 5-7 minutes until marshmallows are puffed and getting toasty.  Cool the cookie in the pan.

Chocolate glaze---1/4 cup milk chocolate chips melted in glass bowl in the microwave with 1 1/2 teaspoons butter.  Put the glaze in a sandwich-sized plastic zipper bag and snip off a little bit of one corner.  Drizzle chocolate over the cookie pizza.

Orange glaze---1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon water, 3 drops yellow food coloring, 2 drops red food coloring.  Whisk ingredients together in a bowl until smooth.  Put the glaze in a sandwich-sized plastic zipper bag and snip off a little bit of one corner.  Drizzle the glaze over the cookie pizza.

Slice the cooled and topped pizza and serve.

Looks like my kind of pizza!