Breakfast Cookies

Good Morning! Hopefully you all had a good weekend. I am just coming back to work today since I was at my friends wedding this weekend which by the way the most amazing culinary experience of my life. I've never experienced such a large and tasty cocktail hour ever. This resulted in a mondo food overload though which requires some healthier eating to make up for it. These "cookies" could probably do it. They really could be eaten any time of the day too. They are totally suitable as breakfast, or part of your lunch (or dinner), a snack, or dessert! Although, I would eat a huge bowl of the chocolatey-est cookie dough for breakfast so personally, I don't need a "healthier" version to take it's place. Most people don't participate in those kind of escapades though which is why we have these guys. They remind me of oatmeal raisin cookies with a touch of banana. They are mighty tasty though and don't use any flour, butter, or sugar. All you need is already in the main ingredients.

Breakfast Cookies
Yield ~30 cookies

1 1/2 c oats
3/4 c coconut
1/2 c ground almonds
3/4 cup raisins
1/4 c oil
1 mashed banana
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon maple extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In one bowl mash the banana and mix in the applesauce, oil, salt, cinnamon, clove, vanilla, and maple. Meanwhile toast the almonds to bring out the flavor then place in a plastic bag and mash them into small pieces. Add those to a separate bowl with the oats, coconut, and raisins. Then pour in the liquid mixture to create "dough". Form into small balls about 2 tablespoons large and place on a sprayed cookie sheet. Bake for about 16 minutes until dough is drier.

 

St. Patrick's Funfetti Blondie Bites

St. Patrick's is almost here! Only a few more days to make as many green and Irish things as possible. This weekend I went to the Green Beer Races which is quickly becoming a tradition. This is the third year I've gone and it only gets better every year. It's green beer though so I don't know who would be able to resist that. Since I was in such an Irish mood I wanted to make some St. Patty's treats. My favorite cake is funfetti and I've been obsessed lately with blondies so I bring you the St. Patrick's Funfetti Blondie Bites! OK, so maybe they should really be called Greenie bites? Leprechaundie Bites? They aren't so blond once you add in that green food coloring. Andddddd you should really wait until they are completely cooled so yours turn out in perfect squares versus my oddly shaped ones. They just tasted so good I couldn't stop cutting/eating them immediately after they came out of the oven.

St. Patrick's Funfetti Blondie Bites
Yield ~25

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
2 tablespoons oil
3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
dash of salt
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
green food coloring
1/4 cup sprinkles

Candy melts (whichever color you prefer, I used green for St. Patrick's)
Sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter and mix in with brown sugar, sugar, vanilla, and oil. Next add in the baking powder, salt, powdered sugar, and flour. Last mix in the green food coloring (if you'd like them to be green, omit if you want plain funfetti) and the sprinkles. Pour into a small baking dish. I used a small 6x6 but you could easily double the recipe for a 9x9 baking dish. Place in oven and bake for 25 minutes, check on blondies and bake a few more minutes or as needed until firm. Let blondies cool, then cut them into 1 inch squares. Place them on a baking sheet and freeze for about 30 minutes. Once they have hardened up some, melt the candy melts in a bowl microwaving for 30 seconds at a time until completely melted. Place a square onto a fork and dip into chocolate shaking excess off. Then place the blondie on a sheet of wax paper to harden and add sprinkles if desired. 

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Spaghetti Cupcakes

The best part of today is my NEW blog banner! I'm in love with it and I have to thank my wonderful friend Allison for making it for me. She's a real pro with that design stuff. She's also a real pro singer too. She's so unbelievably talented and I'm so happy to have her in my life :) You should all let me know what you think of it in the comments! BUT anyway, what's a blog post without a recipe?

These are the dessert I told you all I brought to the Italian potluck dinner I went to last weekend... Spaghetti Cupcakes! I'd been dying to make these forever (like since last summer) but I never really had a reason to until the potluck. It was destiny, obviously Italy was calling my name. These probably didn't last longer than an hour. My recipe made a ton of them and I only brought half a ton. I should've brought all of them so I wasn't left alone with the rest on Sunday.

Spaghetti Cupcakes
Yield ~60 mini cupcakes or 24 regular size cupcakes

No Fail Vanilla Cupcakes
1 package vanilla cake mix
1 package vanilla pudding mix (3.9-5 ounce)
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Vanilla Frosting
1/2 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
enough milk to get desired consistency

Strawberry Preserves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together eggs, sour cream, oil, water, and vanilla. Add in the cake mix and pudding mix and stir until all combined. Bake about 15 minutes or until slightly golden. For frosting cream butter and vanilla together. Add in the powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time. Add in milk until desired consistency is reached. To create the spaghetti noodle frosting you will either need a small tip for your frosting bag or you can put the frosting in a strong sandwich plastic bag and cut a small opening in the corner. Squeeze the frosting out in random directions to make it look like noodles. After you have finished, take about 3 tablespoons or so of strawberry preserves and mix it with 1 tablespoon of water. Place spoonfuls of the mixture on top of the frosting for sauce. If you are making larger cupcakes you can use Ferrero Rocher's to place on top to look like meatballs, for the smaller version you can use Whopper's.

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Chocolate Buttermilk Pielets

Hautelook.com is quite possibly the most evil site ever. I think the Devil created it to make us all poor. Every day at 11 o'clock new specials come out on clothes and homegoods and beauty products. When my friend first told me about this site I was not impressed. I could have cared less cause let's be honest, I'm not much of a girly girl. A few weeks ago I decided to give it another try. Every day my cart has something in it by 11:03. By 11:15 you have to decide if you want it and if you don't buy it right then, you lose it. I'm always scrambling to decide do I need it, do I want it? Will this make me look better!?!?! I get anxiety daily from this stupid website. My anxiety overtook me today and I ended up spending $45, sadness. Meanwhile, I bought a groupon yesterday for bikram yoga classes. I don't know what I was thinking. YEA, I totally want to stay in one pose for 5 minutes straight in 105 degree heat with men wearing tight little yoga shorts...

Maybe I will feel better about all this if I have one of these little pies today when I get home. I have a few left surprisingly. When I was trying to come up with these I wanted to use the last of my buttermilk and figured I could do it with buttermilk pies. I made them bite-sized since I was taking them to a birthday party. Every person I said those words to has almost recoiled in disgust. Maybe it's because it's more of a southern treat but buttermilk is not as bad as you think. At least there were only a few left so the name didn't get the best of them! These were so tasty and almost like a brownie in a little phyllo shell.     

Yield
~ 1 9" deep dish pie or about 50 mini pies
You can half the recipe to make 25 mini pies which is what I did. The recipe below is for the full serving though.

1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup buttermilk
 3 eggs
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

9" deep dish pie shell
OR
half a package of defrosted phyllo dough

If you are making the full size pie, get your frozen pie shell out to thaw or make your homemade version. If you are making the phyllo shells make sure your dough is thawed completely so it does not break. Unroll the dough and cut a strip off the pile of phyllo layers at a time, about 3 inches long. You will then have a pile of sheets about 10 inches by 3 inches. Take a layer and place on an oiled surface, such as a cookie sheet. Then spray it with vegetable/canola oil. Take another layer of dough and repeat until you have 8 layers of phyllo dough with spray between each layer. Then cut your strip into thirds and stuff each square into the mini cupcake tin spaces. They should look like the picture above.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix eggs, sugar, and flour together in a bowl, then add in the melted butter. Next add in the cocoa powder. Last pour in buttermilk and vanilla and mix. If you are making a full pie, next you can just pour the mixture into the pie shell. Place in oven and bake 60 minutes or until center is only slightly jiggly. If you are doing the minis, pour a tablespoon of filling into each phyllo shell you have made. Place them in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or so.

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King's Cake Cupcakes

"Fun-sized Snickers? Who’s this fun for? Not me. I need six or seven of these babies in a row to start having fun." - Jeff Carlin

Fat Tuesday was yesterday and unfortunately I didn't have any of these minis left to get fat with. Maybe that quote could help explain why. Maybe if a total of 5 girls hadn't eaten them all Saturday I'd have some left but I might be the most guilty party of them all. And what's worse, you put Nala in danger. Just kidding, but what is worse is now I have to think of something to give up for Lent. I could probably think of some really great ones but I'm too selfish to give them up. For example, Diet Coke or SUGAR in it's entirety which would include... cupcakes.

Cupcakes are kind of my thing. I guess you could say I got started on this baking kick with cake. I don't even know how many flavors of cupcakes I've made by now but it's more than I can count. These ones were pretty amazing though and definitely a welcome break from my frequent chocolate overload. This cake batter is great too. It's such an easy way to doctor up a basic cake mix for a more made from scratch approach. Plus, it's a fun way of incorporating the King's Cake taste into cupcakes.

King's Cake Cupcakes

Yield ~50 mini cupcakes ~20-24 regular cupcakes

For Cake:

1 package golden butter cake mix

1 package vanilla pudding mix (3.9 oz)

1 cup sour cream

1 cup oil

1/2 cup water

2 tbs buttermilk powder

4 eggs

1 tbs vanilla

For cinnamon sugar layer:

1/2 tbs cinnamon

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tbs butter 

For frosting:

1/2 cup butter (room temperature)

2 cups powdered sugar

2 ounces cream cheese

1 tsp cinnamon

dash of cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together cake mix, pudding mix, and buttermilk powder so there are no clumps. Add in the sour cream, oil, water, eggs, and vanilla. Stir together until completely mixed. In a separate bowl melt the 1 tbs butter then add in the brown sugar and cinnamon to make the middle layer of the cupcake. Next fill cupcake liners about 1/3 of the way with batter, then sprinkle a layer of the cinnamon sugar layer as shown below, then fill up to about 2/3 of the way with more batter. Place them in the oven and bake for about 14 minutes. Check on them at this time to see if they're done, they may need a couple more minutes. Take them out and set to cool.

Meanwhile, take your butter and cream cheese and mix them together in a bowl. Next add in your powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time. After that, add in the cinnamon and any cream you may need to get your desired consistency. Then spread or pipe onto your cupcakes, whichever you prefer.

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Pralines

Pralines. Some will yell at you if you say it like I do. PRAY-leens. Last night I was told it was PRAH-leens. Either way, they still taste the same which is heavenly. Thank God I know how to make them now so I don't have to go back to New Orleans just to get some. This will save me a lot of money but it will not save me any room in my jeans. These things are pure sugar with a little bit of extra stuff added in. They are truly a New Orleans treat though so you should try them out.

They were a hit at my party last night except for the one person who said he might become diabetic from them. Really?! First of all, if someone invites you to a party with tons of food they made themselves don't criticize the goods. Second of all, if I haven't gone diabetic yet I'm pretty sure he won't considering I'm the biggest sugar freak ever. I had 3 of them last night... along with 5 mini cupcakes. Weekends are for overindulgence. At least that's what I tell myself so I feel better when I do this kind of thing. 

They had their own little setup with the King Cake cupcakes and Muffuletta pizza which are coming later this week! Side note: Diet Coke has nothing to do with Mardi Gras but I'm slightly addicted to it so it's everywhere in my house. It slips into pictures occasionally.

 

Pralines

Yield ~20

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup light cream

2 tbs butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup pecans (whole or chopped)

Place sugar, brown sugar, and light cream in a pot on medium heat. Whisk occasionally until sugar starts dissolving. Turn heat up to bring mixture to a boil, the temperature needs to reach 235 degrees (soft ball stage). Once it does, take it off the heat and add in the butter and vanilla. Do not mix, but let it sit for a few minutes. After that, pour in the pecans and whisk the mixture together. Quickly, take spoonfuls of the mixture and place them on a sheet of wax paper so they can spread out and cool. You want to make sure that you do this as speedy as possible though so that the candy doesn't start crystallizing. Within 5 minutes mine had started to do so. Once finished, let cool then EAT. It's so good, the sugar just melts in your mouth.

Here is what your mixture will look like right around the time it's reaching 235 degrees.

 

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Red Velvet Cookie Dough Truffles

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you are all having a great start so far to your day. Mine is starting with these! They're kind of addicting. Last week I was trying to think what I wanted to make for Valentine's Day and I felt like I really wanted to do something with red velvet. I started thinking hard and decided on red velvet cookie dough truffles. I had heard of chocolate chip cookie dough truffles so I figured this could work and oh man, did it. 

On Sunday morning I woke up and went to the gym. When I came back this was sitting on the counter for me, along with a boyfriend making me brunch. I wasn't complaining, although it did make for an interesting "baking" session which resulted in a much messier kitchen than normal and me eating more of my truffles than I had really planned on.

Red Velvet Cookie Dough Truffles

Yield ~34 truffles

1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup water
6 tbs powdered buttermilk
2 tbs cocoa powder (may want to do 1-1 1/2 if you want it to be more red)
1 tbs vanilla
1 tsp red food coloring

chocolate candy melts/wafers

Melt butter, then mix it with brown sugar, sugar, oil, water, and vanilla. Next mix in the powdered buttermilk (this gives the red velvet flavor), cocoa powder, and flour. Last add in the red food coloring. You can add more or less depending on the red color you want. Roll the dough into balls that are about 1.5 inches in diameter and place them on a wax paper covered cookie sheet. Place in the freezer for about an hour.

Melt chocolate candy wafers in a double boiler or just place a metal bowl over a pot of boiling water. Stir around until wafers are completely melted. Stick a toothpick in a ball of dough and then swirl it around in the melted chocolate, then place it back on the wax paper. Repeat until you've covered all your cookie dough balls. If you would like to add anything to the top of your truffles (coconut or anything else) do it as soon as you take them off the toothpick since the chocolate will harden quickly.

Lastly, since no Valentine's is complete without a little heart action this awesome picture is being brought to you by NOAA. Even the earth loves you.
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Choco Coco Cup Brownies

 

Last Thursday my sister was feeling a little down. I told her she could come over and I could bake her something if that would help. She was there 20 minutes later. She said she didn't really care what I made she just wanted the bowl. I only had about an hour so I decided to go with brownies but I didn't want a big pan of them. I thought brownie cups might be a little better. Also, I thought they might be a little better with chocolate chips and some toasted coconut. So I started putting everything together but when it came time to add in the egg, I realized I had no eggs and only egg whites so I had to improvise. Here's what I came up with.

Choco Coco Cup Brownies

Yield 9 Brownie Cups

1 cup flour

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 tbs butter

2 tbs cocoa powder

1/2 cup chocolate fudge (I used Smucker's)

5 tbs egg whites (~2 regular eggs)

1 tsp vanilla

chocolate chips

shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix butter, sugar, and brown sugar together. Add in chocolate fudge and vanilla and mix. Next mix in the eggs. Last mix in the flour and cocoa powder. Spray cupcake pan and fill each up 2/3 of the way. Sprinkle some chocolate chips on top (I did around 10 for each one), then sprinkle some coconut on top of that. Bake for ~20 minutes and check to see if done. They may need a couple more minutes after that but it will depend on your oven.

Don't forget to check back tomorrow for my recipe for these little babies! I made them to bring to work for Valentine's Day but I'm just hoping they last until tomorrow. I may have already eaten 7. Oops...

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S'more Cookies

 Any time I go to a party I can't go without making a dessert. It's like a tick I have and can't get rid of. This weekend for the Super Bowl was no exception. When I was thinking about what to bring Sunday I started thinking about this past Friday night. I went out that night to a friend's house for a bit and came back and had the bright idea at midnight to bake (of course). I ended up throwing a bunch of random ingredients together, one of which included marshmallows...

Needless to say, when I woke up in the morning I thought to myself "what was I thinking?" Then I thought MARSHMALLOWS! I could totally turn this into something like a s'more! So I decided to start with a chocolate cookie base, add in some chocolate chips and marshmallows, then roll it in some crushed up graham crackers. With that being said, here's the recipe!





S'more Cookies
Yield ~24 cookies

Ingredients: 

1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
2 tbs cocoa powder
1 tbs vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup marshmallows
4 oz crushed up graham crackers

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together sugar, brown sugar, and butter. Add in the egg and vanilla extract. Next add in the flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder. Once everything is mixed together fold in the chocolate chips and marshmallows. Take 2-3 tablespoon scoops of dough and roll them in crushed graham crackers. Place each ball of dough on baking sheet. Bake for 8-9 minutes. Keep a close eye on them though so that they don't burn. It can happen pretty quickly cause of the graham crackers. If you like your s'mores with slightly burnt marshmallows though this might be a tastier option for you.

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