Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies

Another Sunday, another batch of cookies. These ones I’ve had in mind for quite some time, but wasn’t sure how to nail the execution. Everyone loves peanut buter and jelly. Except people with peanut allergies. Or people who don’t like jelly. Other than that, pretty much everyone loves PB&J. Peanut butter cookies tend to be pretty crumbly so I wasn’t sure how to incorporate the jam into them. Luckily, my trusty mom who sends me random baking packages from King Arthur Flour had sent me a package that had these things called Raspberry Jammy Bits. So I made some peanut butter cookies and threw these in there, and boom – PB&J in a cookie. I doubled the recipe to make sure there were plenty of these for coworker cookie Monday.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup supermarket-style smooth peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup Raspberry Jammy Bits

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the shortening and sugars. If you don’t have shortening or prefer to use butter, you can substitute 1/2 a cup of butter for 1/3 cup of shortening. If I made these again, I’d probably use butter. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract.

Step 2: Add in smooth peanut butter and mix well. Do not use natural peanut butter. Spray the measuring cup generously with non-stick spray before measuring the peanut butter, which will make it a lot easier to get out.

Step 3: Sift together the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated. Add in the raspberry jammy bits and just mix until they are evenly distributed in the dough.

 

Step 4: Scoop even-size balls of dough and place on a sil-pat or parchment-lined baking sheet. Using a fork, press them down making a criss-cross. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until the edges are lightly golden brown.

These are pretty good if I do say so myself. I love peanut butter cookies to begin with, but the raspberry bits are little flavor explosions that are a nice surprise when you bite into the cookie. Thinking these will not last long Monday morning.

Sometimes the best weekends are the ones when you don’t have any set plans in advance. This weekend was perfectly relaxing, which was much needed. Friday night we had a girls wine and grill night and tested grilling pizza on a pizza stone and directly on the grill. Lesson learned, pizza stones are hot and if you touch them you will burn your fingerprints right off.

There was a lot of outside time Saturday in the backyard with the grill, and some solid tennis playing this weekend. Even got in a game outdoors this morning, which has left me sunburnt and tired but very happy. And of course, a quick trip to Home Depot today because no weekend would be complete without that.

This is my idea of a perfect Sunday morning.

Oh and let’s not forget that I had my second hand-modeling gig this week, once again cast as the role of “mom hands” in another CVS Mobile App demo video. This is a sneak peek into how movies are made. I mean, next stop Hollywood right?

 

 

Orange Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I’m writing this post and it’s not 11pm. Little victories. Today’s a big day. It’s Mother’s Day. And while the rest of you are all up on Facebook posting about how your mom is the “best” I think we all know the truth …. my mom is the best mom out there hands down. She is the person who taught me how to bake, so without her there would be no salted cookies. She has a great sense of humor, and loves both Ke$ha and Eminem, for real. She also took so many photos of me as a child that if you flip through the albums quickly you can actually see me grow up like a flipbook. But as a result, I am now incredibly photogenic. And humble. It’s no surprise that I am also her favorite child (sorry Dan and Kristen, you guys come in a close second and third). From the time I was time I was just the size of a kumquat, I knew first impressions were everything. So being the sweet child that I am, I decided to give my mom the easiest labor ever and pop out only 40 minutes after she arrived in the hospital. You’re welcome, Mom.

I spent the weekend down the Cape with my parents, which was great. My mom has all of the photo albums down there, so as my gift to her I spent the morning reliving my childhood by showing her adorable photos of me. I mean, does it get any better? I’ve included a highlight reel at the bottom of this post. I guess I should talk about cookies first. So I was in CVS yesterday with my mom browsing the Hallmark aisle since my mom is an avid card buyer (she sent me 1 card every single day for the 4 years I was in college, true story). And I came across these Lindt Dark Chocolate Orange Bars at the end of the aisle. So decided to make these little orange zesty dark chocolate cookies. I do have to give a little credit to Skip for the inspiration, since as a kid I always remember his ice cream of choice was one scoop chocolate ice cream and one scoop orange sherbert. A winning combination.

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 light brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• Zest from 1 orange
• 2 1/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 Lindt Dark Chocolate Orange Bars coarsely chopped

 

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cream together butter and sugars. Add in vanilla extract and eggs, and mix well.

Step 2: Sift together the dry ingredients and add into the wet mixture until well incorporated. Zest one large orange and add it into the batter. (That manicure is for my latest “mom hands” hand modeling gig. I’m going to be big time soon).

Step 3: Coarsely chop two dark chocolate bars and add to the batter. If you can find the ones infused with orange zest get those, if not it should be enough orange flavor with the regular orange zest. Chill the dough for a half hour if you have time. Especially now that it is getting warmer out (and if you’re too cheap to turn on the AC yet like me) it just makes it easier to handle the dough.

Step 4: Scoop even-size balls of dough onto parchment or sil-pat lined baking sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 9-12 minutes, or until lightly brown.

I mean does that manicure just scream Mom Hands or what?

 

 

These are good. Real good. The orange flavor is so refreshing. I am definitely going to be adding it to more cookies in the future.

Before we get into the highlight reel of my adorable childhood, this is what Colleen and I mastered Friday night. And by mastered, I mean I need to invest in a pizza stone because the bottom was charred black, but damn this was still good. We made a Margarita Pizza and then one with crazy toppings: roasted red peppers, eggplant, goat cheese, bacon, and caramelized onion. We also made a grilled romaine caesar (not pictured).

And now, as a tribute to the woman who gave me life and taught me to be photogenic, here are some adorable photos from what I like to call Becca: The Early Years.

This is a very classy picture. Minus the fact my mom had cut my bangs.

I like to call this pose “say what?”

 

This is my sassy face. This looks a lot like my grown up face most days too.

 

And last but not least, I had to throw this in there. Grandpa was always a party animal. I look wasted. Happy Mother’s Day everyone.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Sunday night, we meet again. In my defense, I just flew back from North Carolina this afternoon and any normal person would think that is reason enough to not be expected to bake tonight. But last time I missed bringing cookies on a Monday when I flew back from San Fran, there was upheaval in the office. Crying, tears, tantrums. So I put my coworkers needs above my own mental health tonight and baked up some cookies. Mentally, I was not together enough to come up with any cinco de mayo cookies. I had other cookies in mind, but the bagger at Stop and Shop tonight had other plans for me. I had bought an Orange to make Orange Dark Chocolate cookies, but that orange is still sitting in the bagging area of Stop and Shop. Then I was going to make salted peanut buter cookies, until I realized I only had a spoonful of peanut butter in the house. So I emptied my baking cabinet, and decided I couldn’t go wrong with oatmeal and dark chocolate. So bam. Here ya go.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 bittersweet chocolate bars, chopped

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Cream together butter and sugars. Add the egg and egg yolk and vanilla and mix well.

Step 2: Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and add to the wet mixture. Add in a cup of old-fashioned oats.

Step 3: Chop up two bittersweet chocolate bars. If you don’t want to do this, just add 2 cups of chocolate chips or chocolate chunks.

 

Step 4: Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes if you have some time to spare. Using a cookie scoop, place even-size balls of dough on a sil-pat or parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for about 12-14 minutes. I experimented using the small and medium cookie scoop, and I think medium was the way to go on these.

 

Perfect and easy oatmeal cookies. I’m a big fan of bittersweet chocolate now instead of regular semi-sweet chocolate chips. And I’m glad I already have a few more cookie recipes in my back pocket after the grocery store debacle today.

I took a long overdue vacation day on Friday and flew down to Chapel Hill to visit one of my very good friends from college for a girls weekend. The highlight was definitely the Southern Mixology class that we took at Durham Spirits on Friday night. It was such a fun way to learn how to make new drinks … while also getting to drink them. Hey now Bourbon. We learned to make: Mint Juleps (and a Strawberry version too), Charleston Tea Punch, Ramos Gin Fiz, and a Seelbach Cocktail. Bourbon isn’t all that gross if you drink it in a classy way. Noted. 

 

Molasses Cookies

Well it’s Sunday night. Which means I waited again until the last minute to write this. But at least I have a good excuse for my procrastination this weekend. One of my very good friends Lauren got married last night in Newport, which meant I was up until the wee hours (….or maybe only 11pm) tearing up the dance floor . Which made it a little hard to get up and at ‘em this morning, but it was well worth it. One of the most fun weddings I have ever attended. Lauren was my manager when I was at Accenture and we spent a few lovely months in the boondocks of Malvern, Pennsylvania together. We bonded over an ability to speak in nothing but consulting lingo — triaging, synergy, leveraging, purple cows. And since we flew twice a week every week, we called Thursdays our “Fly Home Thursday” where we’d refresh the flight list every few minutes to make sure our flights home were on time. Had I been into blogging back in the day, I could have documented some of my epic consulting traveling stories. I’ll try to weave those into these blogs when they need spicing up.

On to the cookies. I had a request from one of my favorite blog follower coworkers a few weeks back to make some Molasses cookies. And we all know I love a good challenge. So I did a lot of research and found this recipe off of http://www.joyofbaking.com/. So hopefully they get some thumbs up tomorrow.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1  teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (I didn’t have these)
• Sugar for rolling

 

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the butter and dark sugar. (Make sure you use dark brown sugar). Add in the vegetable oil, egg, and vanilla extract and mix well. Spray the 1/3 measuring cup with non-stick spray before you measure the molasses in it. It will make it a lot easier to get out. Add the molasses to the mixture and mix well.

 

 

Step 2: In a separate bowl sift together the dry ingredients. I didn’t have cloves so I just omitted that step. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix well. Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour to make it easier to handle.

Step 3: Scoop even size balls of dough onto a sil-pat or parchment lined baking sheet. Roll them in your hands so they are even and then roll it in granulated sugar to evenly coat it. Press the dough down lightly on the baking sheet when you spread the cookies out.

Step 4: Bake at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes. It’s a little tricky to tell when these are done because of the dark color but mine cracked a little on top when they were done.

 

These taste a lot like Christmas. Which is weird in April, but regardless they are still delicious.

I have no other witty stories from this week. And I’m not yet ready to go into detail on some of my finest dance moves which made an appearance last night. I’m also mid way through an episode of Friday Night Lights, and as much as I would like to drop some witty knowledge on you tonight, I’m a little more focused on Tim Riggins tonight. Happy Sunday.

 

 

 

Toasted Coconut, Macademia Nut and Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies

Well that was officially the longest most emotionally exhausting week in Boston history. I have been watching the marathon every Monday for the past 10 years, and it will never be the same. It felt like we were all stuck in one very long bad episode of Homeland. It is amazing to see the city come together during the events of last week and really embody the new phrase circulating around of #BostonStrong. (you know I love a good hashtag too). My heart really goes out to all of the victims and their families. If you’re looking to donate to some of the victims, this is a great story of a fellow Boston College alum who was an orientation leader when I was a freshman at BC and definitely someone everyone on campus knew. Him and his wife were severely injured and people have raised over $500k in just a few days to help aid their recovery: https://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/ygf1/helpforpatandjess

To donate to the OneFund that was set up by the city, you can donate here: http://onefundboston.org/

Hopefully tomorrow as Boylston street reopens life in Boston will slowly start what I imagine will be a long journey to get back to a sense of normal. And there’s no better way to start this week off than with these cookies that will hopefully brighten my coworkers’ Monday morning.

I love when a good flavor combination pops in my head and it comes to fruition in a delicious cookie. After I made those homemade caramel delights a few months  back, I have really been wanting to get toasted coconut into some new cookie recipes. And I think I can safely say I nailed it with this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 brown sugar
• 3/4 granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups of flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups toasted coconut
• 1 1/2 cups chopped bittersweet chocolate
• 1 cup macadamia nuts, toasted

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. To toast the coconut, spread it out on a sil-pat or parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes, stirring every few minutes when you start to see it turning golden brown. Put it in a bowl to cool.

Step 2: To toast the macadamia nuts, spread them out on a sil-pat lined baking sheet and toast at 350 degrees for about 6 to 8 minutes, stirring every few minutes to make sure they do not burn. I did both the coconut and macadamia nuts at the same time.

Step 3: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cream together the butter and sugars. Mix in the eggs and vanilla and beat for a few minutes. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt and add to the wet mixture and mix until well incorporated.

Step 4: Add in the coconut, nuts and chopped bittersweet chocolate. Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes. This will make it a lot easier to handle.

Step 5: Scoop even-size balls of dough onto parchment or sil-pat lined baking sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown.

Boom. Literally nailed this recipe like a perfect hashtag. The toasted coconut has such a great texture and amazing flavor. Macadamia nuts and bittersweet chocolate really come together for a full flavor explosion with every bite. So so good. I can’t wait to bring them in to work tomorrow.

After being on lockdown Friday and not allowed to go outside, I spent as much time outside this weekend as possible. My mom came up today from Connecticut to help with some backyard work. Here are some photo highlights of our very productive day.
Birthday present grill was delivered! And we used some spare bricks from the backyard to build a little ghetto patio for it.

We started the lawn mower together and I actually mowed the lawn for the the first time in my life. Never thought this would be my idea of Sunday Funday.

Cleaned up the garden area in the back of the yard and installed the little black fence.

And the best addition to today … installing a flag mount to proudly fly the American flag over my backyard.

And then ending the day by breaking in the new grill with some kabobs. Yum. Everything tastes better on the grill.

Fluffernutellchip Cookies

I’m not a copywriter, clearly. But I need to start naming my cookies instead of calling them by the long list of ingredients. Like these cookies — Peanut Butter, Marshmallow Fluff, Nutella, and Bittersweet Chocolate Chip. Fluffernuttellachip? Fluffahnuttahchip? I think Fluffernutellchip works. I’ll have to enlist one of my copywriters at work to be my professional cookie namer. These cookies were inspired by dessert Friday night. It was a rainy gross cold night in Boston, so there was no way we were venturing beyond our regularly Friday night spot Local149.

Our instagram pics are some variation of this every Friday night, with some new clever hashtag.

And we had to indulge in this dessert, which inspired these cookies. Fried Fluffernutter with Nutella for dipping. This picture does not do the taste of this justice.

So I was trying to figure out the best way to get all of these flavors into one cookie. Which meant some hardcore experimenting today. I used my regular peanut butter chocolate chunk base for the cookie, folded in some fluff and then cut in some Nutella. I don’t want to pat myself on my own back, but I think these came out tasting pretty good.

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1 cup peanut butter- crunchy or smooth, but not natural
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 bittersweet chocolate bar chopped ( I use Godiva)
• 1/2 cup Nutella
• 3/4 cup Fluff

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the butter and peanut butter until smooth. Add in the sugars and beat well. Mix in the eggs and vanilla.

Step 2: In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Add in the chocolate chunks. You could use chocolate chips or chunks, whatever floats your boat. I had a Godiva bittersweet chocolate bar that I wanted to use.

Step 3: Take the fluff and fold it into the dough using a spatula or spoon. I used about half a jar of fluff. Chill the dough for about 30 minutes or pop it in the freezer if you are short on time. This will help make the Nutella easier to mix in and help the fluff set.

Step 4: Pour the Nutella right on top of the dough. Using a butter knife, slowly cut the Nutella into the dough so it’s swirled into the dough. Chill the dough again for about 20 minutes in the fridge so that its easier to handle.

Step 5: Scoop even-size balls of dough onto a parchment or sil-pat lined baking sheet. Roll the balls of dough and press them down lightly with your finger tips. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. I had tried these originally at 375 degrees but its better to go low and slow at 350 degrees.

I think these came out pretty good. There are a lot of flavors in this cookie, so it’s definitely one that you need to eat slowly to savor. I am hoping my coworkers will be able to survive a cookie-less Monday tomorrow. It’s Marathon Monday in Boston, which in college meant no classes and day drinking. As a grown up, it means traveling to client-sites and not being able to get back into the city during the day. So I baked these today but am sure they will be eaten quickly Tuesday morning.

This weekend was a good one. I made it down to the Cape for the night last night, and enjoyed this beautiful sunset on Long Pond. I am full on ready for summer time to get here.

 

 

Last week was the one year anniversary of TheSaltedCookie.com! 79 recipes and many manicures later, I am very appreciative for the hard work all of you have put in as my loyal blog readers and taste testers. Looking forward to another year of cookie baking!

Oatmeal Butterscotch Caramel Cookies

One day I will not wait until the last minute on Sundays to write these blog posts. But that day clearly is not today. My roommate and I have this expression for when we are over-tired — hashtag exhausted. And let me tell you right now I am #exhausted. We love hashtags more than the typical person and try to hashtag as many things as we can. It’s not shocking that hashtag hashtag is usually how our instagram or facebook pictures are tagged. One day I’ll explain more about hashtags and how we have an entire code language adapted from episodes of teen mom. But that’s for another day.

It was a very fun memorable weekend, but I feel like this is the first time I have sat down since Friday morning. Friday night some of my girlfriends form work came over and we baked up some homemade pizza and had a few bottles of wine. I made cappuccino chip brownies which I will post the recipe for sometime this week. Saturday was my friend Lauren’s bachelorette party in Boston which was a lot of fun. And today I obviously had to hit Home Depot. More on that at the end of this post. Now to the cookies.

I always get great requests and cookie suggestions from my friends, and this request for caramel and butterscotch came from one of my coworkers who loves the two ingredients. I found this recipe for Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies on http://picky-palate.com/ which is one of my favorite cookie blog sites, and figured since Friday was both Skip’s birthday (hi dad) and National Caramel day, this was a good weekend to try out a caramel cookie recipe. The dough itself was so delicious I almost didnt want to bake the actual cookies, but the baked version was even more delicious and without the chance of getting Salmonella poisioning. Booyah.

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks softened unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup prepared caramel sauce
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup quick oats
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 bag butterscotch chips

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the butter and sugars. Add in the eggs and vanilla and mix well until light and fluffy. Add in the caramel sauce, exercising self control to not just eat it straight from the jar. I found this butterscotch caramel sauce which seemed perfect for these.

 

Step 2: In a separate bowl mix together the flour, oats, salt and baking soda. Add the dry mixture to the wet batter and beat until incorporated. Add in the butterscotch chips and mix well. I recommend chilling the dough for at least a half an hour to make it easier to work with.

Step 3: Scoop even-size balls of dough onto parchment or sil-pat lined baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden.

Hashtag delicious. No other way to describe this. I love this caramel sauce and I think I’ll be adding it to some other cookie experiments in the near future for sure.

The girl who lives upstairs and I took a trip to Home Depot today to scope out some things for our backyard. Our electrician came this afternoon to give us estimates on hooking up lights on our patios since summer is coming and we need to get ready. So we felt very home-ownery trying to pick out light fixtures by ourselves today. And then wandered the aisles and started picking up more random stuff we probably didn’t actually need. You’d be surprised though how much stuff exists in Home Depot that you just didn’t even know you needed. We then went to Target to test out outdoor furniture and were just sitting at a table by ourselves (wearing gardeners hats obviously) when an old lady just came and sat down with us like it was nothing. Maybe she thought we were mannequins. Who knows. But soon there will be lighting, grills, patios, umbrellas, and corn toss in our back yard. So I’m going to need to up my cookie game to get some good summer cookies prepared for all of these BBQs. I wonder if I can make cookies on the grill. Only time will tell.

That’s it for tonight. Hashtags in the air.

Homemade Funfetti Cookies

Today was a day for celebration cookies.It’s Easter Sunday. It also means lent is over and I am reunited with my lifeblood Diet Coke. But more importantly, today is my birthday. And if you know me at all, you know that I love birthdays. And I had a great birthday weekend with my family and friends. It kicked off with a fun night at the Seaport Friday night where some of my best dance moves came out … ar a bar with no dance floor. My friends requested my favorite song — Wilson Philips “Hold On” where I’m pretty sure we were judged by everyone else in the bar, but we did not care. My siblings and my parents were down on Saturday for a nice dinner and then we had dessert at Georgetown Cupcakes, which were delicious. And today after church, I went to brunch with my roommate and we took a 6-mile walk around the harbor and stopped at the Aquarium to see the seals. I couldn’t think of any better way to spend the weekend.

 

So I needed a cookie to celebrate all of the great times from this weekend. But now that I am old(er), I figured I would remake my classic Fufetti Cake Mix cookies, but this time from scratch and not using a box mix. I found this recipe from Tasty Kitchen, and to be honest the dough is so delicious I almost didn’t want to bake these cookies. These are a very quick cookie to make and taste like a sugar cookie on crack.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1-¼ cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 2-½ cups flour
• ¼ cups cornstarch
• ¾ teaspoons baking soda
• ½ teaspoons salt
• ½ cups Rainbow Jimmie Sprinkles
• 2 tablespoons Nonpareil Sprinkles

 

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cream the butters and sugar until fluffy. Add in the vanilla and egg and beat until well combined.

Step 2: In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt. Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet mixture until well combined. Mix in the sprinkles – but be careful to not overmix.

 

 

 

 

 

Step 3: Using a small cookie scoop, place even-size balls of dough onto parchment or sil-pat lined baking sheets. Bake for about 12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

 

You could frost these with a nice frosting glaze, but honestly these were so delicious I decided to leave these as is.

 

 

I was thinking of rocking this Easter bonnet again, but not sure I could pull it off in my old age. Happy Easter everyone.

Loaded Candy Cookie Bars

Sunday night snuck up on me this weekend. I don’t think I’ve sat down since I woke up Saturday morning. It’s been one of those go go go get 800 things done kind of weekends. So I was really happy last night when my friend Sarah V. emailed me with this recipe idea from mybakingaddiction.com for Loaded Candy Cookie Bars. I have been especially good at avoiding Cadbury Mini Eggs this year. They are my kryptonite. I have one and I can have the entire bag without looking back. Twice I’ve allowed myself to buy the single serve packs at the checkout at Rite Aid. But it’s like in Twilight when one of the vampires sees or smells one drop of blood. They go absolutely crazy, rip their shirts off in front of werewolfs, and break through walls until they find that blood. That, is exactly how I am when it comes to Cadbury Mini Eggs. Just call me Edward Cullen.

But since I’ve been taking this bootcamp competition very seriously, I figured I had enough self control to be around mini eggs today. Especially because I love when friends send me recipes so this was one worth bringing in to work this week. AThey only had the giant bags of mini eggs today, so right after I finished baking these cookie bars I was just staring at the leftover half bag of mini eggs, and immediately washed the mixer and made a batch of regular Cadbury mini egg cookies. Just can’t leave temptation staring me in the face. So it’s going to be a double cookie Monday for my lucky coworkers tomorrow.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped Cadbury Mini Eggs
• 1 cup miniature marshmallows, divided
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips, divided
• 1 cup white chocolate, coarsely chopped, divided

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar. Add in eggs one at a time until well incorporated. Mix in vanilla extract and beat for about 30 seconds until smooth. In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients, and slowly incorporate into the wet mixture.

Step 2: Coarsely chop the mini eggs. The key is to take it slow, so that you don’t chop your finger off. Also, do not use a meat mallet. It doesn’t work and it makes way too much noise. Add half of the mini eggs into the dough. Add half of the dark and white chocolate chips, and half of the marshmallows.

Step 3: The batter will be thick. Spread it into a well-greased 13×9 baking dish. Take the remaining marshmallows, chopped mini eggs, and chocolate chips and sprinkle on top.

Step 4: Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Let these cool completely (yes, really this time) before cutting.

 

I’ll come out and admit it. This manicure is a sham. It’s just my thumb again. I was too busy scrubbing paint off my hallway floors like Cinderella to actually paint all of my nails until later tonight. But it is my new Crabtree & Evelyn nailpolish in Peony. It matches the pink Cadbury mini eggs pretty close though.

The batter isn’t super sweet, probably because there is no granulated sugar, but that’s probably better since there is such a variety of sweet goodies in this bar. To make the cookie form of this, I used the same ingredients minus the marshmallows since I just don’t trust marshmallows in cookies.

 

Yesterday I took a tennis lesson for the first time in like 10 years, and it was so much fun. Back in the day, I used to be quite the tennis player. I was captain and number one singles on the tennis team in high school, and was in tennis training since I was six. I found out yesterday on the court I still have some skills, and apparently a bit of a competitive attitude. Oh well. Stay out of the path of my overhead and you’ll be fine to play with me.

I got Palms at church today but still can’t actually put one together. You’d think this would come naturally since I was born on Palm Sunday. Today I went to my favorite store — Home Depot, and was not judged by the staff. Hooray. Well, maybe a little judgement. I went and bought a patio set for my deck and when the guy was helping carry it to my car I asked him if I bought a gas grill could I fit it in my back seat and he just looked at me like “Really lady?” What? I mean that’s not the dumbest thing I could ask.

And lastly, I got to spend some QT this morning with my friend Sarah and her dog Luna, who I affectionately like to call Pancake, for a nice long walk to enjoy the not-snowing and above-20 degree Boston weather that Mother Nature graced us with today.

Chocolate Dipped Potato Chip Cookies

It’s St Patrick’s Day weekend in South Boston, and while it was a very fun weekend, I’m happy it’s Sunday night and the drunkies have made a mass exodus from the city. There are no rules in Southie this weekend. People are double parked up and down streets and there are just people everywhere. I am officially old because I didn’t engage in any crazy festivities this weekend despite owning a home close to the parade route. I ran the Southie 5k this morning which is uphill both ways, literally. Four giant steep hills from the West Side to Castle Island and back again. And all you do is run past the long lines of people with green moustaches lined up outside of the bars. I had one of my best times for the 5k today and then put some Bailey’s in my iced coffee and made a few appearances around town. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take a nap at 4pm, but YOLO right? Some of my best dance moves may have possibly made an appearance last night so I might be recovering from that a little too.

 

 

Anyways, in anticipation of today’s craziness I decided to do some cookie baking on Saturday. My creative director sent me a recipe for these potato chip cookies the other day which sounded delicious. I couldn’t think of anything very st-patricksy to make so I decided to try these. My mom had also sent me a container of shamrock sprinkles from King Arthur Flour so I figured I would use those this weekend too.

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 4 cups coarsely crushed salted potato chips (about 10 ounces)
• Coarse sea salt
• 1 bag chocolate chips (for melting)
• Shamrock sprinkles

 

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cream together butter and sugars. Add in the vanilla and eggs and mix until well incorporated. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt and incorporate into the wet mixture until well combined.

Step 2: Crush up the potato chips. I used an entire regular size bag of Ruffles potato chips and I used my pastry blender to chop them up. Add the chips into the batter.

Step 3: Using a cookie scoop, place even-size balls of dough on sil-pat or parchment-lined baking sheets. Top with a dash of coarse sea salt and bake at 375 degrees for 14-16 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Let them cool completely on a cooling rack. To be honest, while these cooled I went out and got a manicure so I would have nice nails for the dipping picture.

Step 4: Over low heat, melt the bag of chocolate chips in a saucepan. Continuously stir so that you don’t burn the chocolate. Once it clumps, there is no saving it. Without burning your fingers, dip half of the cookie in the chocolate and place back on the cooling rack. Top with the sprinkles while the chocolate is still warm.

 

 

These are really the perfect salty sweet combination. I hid them from the drunkies today so that they can be appreciated by my dedicated coworkers tomorrow.

Speaking of work, my hand model video made it’s debut today. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVGMmCZjJmE&list=UUFwzWrk8u5ycjhmgpSeQ_Yg

It’s just a matter of time until the phone calls start coming in to be cast for more “mom hands” roles. You can still hear some faint party music from a distance. There is over a 3-hour wait to get cabs home right now. Luckily, I have a 20 second walk to get to my bed, and that’s where I’ll be in 5 minutes.