Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

I made cookies for my Grandma yesterday (she's not well). They are the BEST EVER!!!! How can you say no to peanut butter, chocolate chips, and oats all in one?

And even better, we happened to have a package of mini Reese's Pieces lying around, so instead of chocolate chips, I put those in those amazing little chocolate peanut butter cups that make people's mouth water!!!

(a.k.a. Reese's Pieces)

Here's my dough...

Here are my balls, all ready to go in the oven.

Out of the oven...

On the rack...

Finished...

Okay, and you'll probably think this is really weird (because it is), but here's a picture of my cookie in a glass of milk, soaking. :)

Can you see that little peanut butter cup on the top of the cookie? Waiting to be savoured... :)

Here's the recipe:

1 cup margarine
1 cup peanut butter
1\2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar

Cream together thoroughly
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2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. water

Add, beating until fluffy

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1 1\2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt

Sift together and add

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2 1\2 cups quick oatmeal
3\4 cup chocolate chips

Stir in
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Drop onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.

Yield: about 6 dozen

And, in case you were wondering, those cookies are by now, completely gone - because as I said above, they are the BEST COOKIES EVER!!!!!! Here's a good quote for all of you to ad to your blogs:

Good food should never be around the next day.

~Anon.

Okay, I made that quote up.

Whatever.

Bye-bye for now!

Graham-Wiches

Here's a great, easy recipe to enjoy in the summer! (and in the winter too! that could get kind of cold though) Introducing... Graham-Wiches! So little effort goes into such a delicious snack!

The recipe originally called for whip cream, but pudding is cheaper. :)

All you have to do is make a package of instant pudding, any size is fine, but more pudding makes more sandwiches! :) Then you lay out graham crackers on a baking sheet and put a spoonful of pudding on each of them. Any kind is fine. I've tried chocolate, vanilla, pistachio, and cookies'n'cream pudding. They were all great! In the pictures I have cookies'n'cream.

Then you put another graham cracker on top, like a sandwich.

Freeze overnight.

Bon Appetit!

Zwieback day...

If only you could smell the wonderful smell that I smelled today (say that three times fast!). Anyways, today was zwieback baking day! YUMMY! If you don't know zwieback is, then you are seriously missing out. Zwieback are white buns that are seriously good! You're probably thinking, "Oh, how wonderful. It's just a regular bun." (in case you didn't catch on, there was a little bit of sarcasm in that. Oh wait, you're the one thinking it!) But let me tell you, they are NOT! Don't even think it. (Does that paragraph make any sense? :)

If you haven't had zwieback, then you, my poor, zwieback deprived friend, have just got to start a batch this very moment.
We (my brother, my sister, and me) all stopped our school (we're homeschooled) and helped (our mom) shape the buns! They are so good!

This is not my pic. It's from an awesome blog called Mennonite Girls Can Cook. They post a recipe every single day - and they even have a cookbook!

Here's the recipe:

9 cups flour
1 cup butter
4 cups warmed milk
1/2 cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons yeast (heaping)
1 tablespoon salt (heaping)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup flour (for kneading)

With a pastry blender, cut butter into 9 cups flour. Soften yeast in warm water (when using quick rising yeast, add directly to flour). Add salt to warm milk and mix yeast and milk into flour. Combine and let dough rest 15 to 20 minutes. Knead dough until smooth. Let rise to double. Form into balls and place on cookie sheets covered with parchment. Make the second ball smaller than the first and put them together (so there's a bottom and a top). Let rise to double. Bake in hot oven at 400F/200C for 20 minutes.

Bon Appetit!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

When I make cookies, I'm always so sad to put that oh-so-yummy cookie dough into the oven and bake it. What's the point? The cookie dough is so good on its own! That's why I was so happy to find this delicious recipe for cookie dough cupcakes!!! You are going to love them!

Here are my frozen cookie dough balls.

Here's my frozen cookie dough stuck into the cupcake batter. The next step is baking them.

Here are my cupcakes, fresh out of the oven. See the cookie dough peeking out of the top?

Iced and sprinkled with chocolate chips....

The finished product. Doesn't that cookie dough in the middle look scrumptious?

For the cookie dough:
2 sticks softened butter (one stick is 1/4 of a cup)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
4 tbsp milk
1 tbsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup mini chocolate chips

For the cupcakes:
3 sticks softened butter
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
4 large eggs
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract

For the frosting:
3 sticks softened butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

To make the cookie dough, combine the butter and sugars in a mixing bowl and cream on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 mins. Beat in milk and vanilla until incorporated and smooth. Beat in the flour and salt until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. Using a 1.5 tbsp scoop, shape the dough into balls or tubes. Freeze on a parchment lined baking sheet overnight.

To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350° F. Line two cupcake pans with paper liners (24 total). In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter and brown sugar. Beat together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir together to blend. Add the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl on low speed, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients, mixing each addition just until incorporated. Blend in the vanilla.

Using a 3 tbsp scoop, fill the prepared cupcake liners 2/3 full with the cupcake batter. Place a frozen cookie dough ball on the top center of each cupcake.

Bake at 350 for 16-18 mins.

To make the frosting, combine the butter and brown sugar in a mixing bowl and cream on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the powdered sugar until smooth. Beat in the salt, milk, and vanilla extract until smooth and combined.

Frost the cupcakes and sprinkle with mini chocolate chips!

Makes 24 cupcakes.

The Cookie Fiasco: The Day Some Cookies Went Very, Very Wrong

I'd like to say I made this mistake when I was still young and inexperienced in the baking world, but I actually made it just this afternoon.

I haven't made cookies for a very long time, so you can imagine how happy I was when I was allowed to make Marshmallow Filled Chocolate Cookies. I eagerly began the baking process, mixing together all the ingredients. I then proceeded to line the sheet with parchment paper. All good, right? WRONG! I unknowingly used wax paper instead of parchment paper. And, of course, I didn't know that until after the cookies were done baking.

Okay, that's not a real sign, but it should be! Then it would stop poor bakers like me from using wax paper.

Caution to all you bakers out there: Never, ever, ever use wax paper. If the wax paper bakes into the cookies, it could prove rather fatal to your health.

Next, I found out, AFTER I had already begun the marshmallow filling, that I didn't have enough butter to finish. That would have been good to know BEFORE I started the recipe. And if that wasn't enough, the oven started smoking because I had used wax paper instead of parchment paper and it was melting.

And THEN I pulled the cookies out of the oven, turned it off, and found out too late that they weren't cooked enough. My mom and I went through them, pulling each one apart, to see which were cooked enough to be eaten. Fortunately, exactly one half was cooked enough, the other half I'd rather not talk about.

This picture is of all the unbaked cookies, broken in half.

NOTE: IN THE END I MADE MARSHMALLOW ICING, I DIDN'T ACTUALLY FILL THE COOKIES. AND MY ICING WAS COMPLETELY MADE UP, BUT IT STILL TASTED ALRIGHT.
ANYWAYS, if you would like the recipe, here it is:
Marshmallow Filled Chocolate Cookies

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup softened butter or margarine
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups milk
• 4 cups flour
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 3 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 375 º
2. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or grease.
3. In mixer bowl, beat together, margarine, sugar vanilla and eggs. Beat until light. Add milk.
4. Add dry ingredients and mix well. This is a soft dough, more like a thick cake batter.
5. Using a scoop or teaspoon, drop dough about 2 inches apart onto prepared cookie sheets.
6. Bake at 375º for 7 - 9 minutes, baking until cookies are soft but spring back when touched.
7. Wait a minute or two before removing from cookie sheets to a rack. Cool completely.
8. Fill with marshmallow filling and store in tightly covered containers in your freezer.

Marshmallow Filling

• 1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
• 6 Tablespoons milk, divided
• 3 cups icing sugar
• 1/3 cup softened butter or margarine
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Place mini marshmallows and 3 tablespoons of milk in a microwave bowl or saucepan.
2. Gently melt, over medium heat - stirring frequently.
3. Just before marshmallows have melted completely, remove from heat and stir until all the lumps are gone. Set aside.
4. In mixing bowl, beat together margarine, shortening and vanilla.
5. Add icing sugar and 3 tablespoons milk, beating well.
6. Add marshmallow mixture and continue to beat. You may need a bit more icing sugar or milk to make it of spreading consistency. It should be thick but still spreadable.
7. Fill cookies.
8. Enjoy!

Oh well, in the end it all worked out. And the cookies still tasted good!

Bon Appetit!

Peanut Butter Ice Cream Squares

Made this to celebrate my brother doing his grade eight piano exam and for my sister's birthday, which was yesterday, by the way. This picture is from the time my brother did his exam, though, not from my sister's birthday.

Ingredients:

2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup margarine, melted
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups peanuts, chopped (reserve half, I forgot to do this)
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream, softened slightly (divided in half)

To assemble:
Mix together graham cracker crumbs, butter, and sugar. Press into bottom of 9 x 13 baking dish. Place in freezer for at least 10 minutes to chill.


Blend together peanuts, light corn syrup, and peanut butter. Set aside.
Spoon vanilla ice cream evenly over graham cracker crust. Spread peanut butter mixture as the next layer. Then add the last of the ice cream.

Sprinkle reserved peanuts over the top. Freeze until firm. Remove from the freezer about 15 minutes before serving to soften.

Cowboy Cookies

These cookies are VERY good! I love the crunch that the cereal adds! I have brought them to my orchestra twice for snack, and everyone loved them!

Ingredients:
1 cup margarine
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups cereal (rice krispies, bran flakes)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
2 cups oatmeal
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup coconut or chocolate chips (or peanuts)

Cream butter and sugars. Add dry ingredients. Then add the cereal, chocolate chips, coconut, and oats. Mix well, you may need to add some milk. Roll into balls and flatten with fork. Bake at 350 for 12 to 15 minutes.