Holiday/Seasonal

09 Nov 2011 8 Comments

Gigantic Peanut Butter Candy Cookie…for one

When I was little, there were some things grown-ups did that I just did not understand. One thing I remember being so confused about it why they always fought over the check. “No, I’ll pay for it!” “No, really, my treat.” I just didn’t get why they wanted to pay! If someone wanted to pay for me, I wasn’t going to argue. I get it now, but deep down I still don’t like paying for things and if you want to pay for me, go for it! (This doesn’t make me a bad person…right???)

Another thing I just did not understand was why adults would never want to bring dessert home from a party or something like that. They would always say things like “Oh no, we don’t need that around the house.” And I was always like “uhh yes we do! It’s so tasty!” Again, I get it now. But I still like having dessert around the house..because I like dessert.

All those crazy grown-ups out there should appreciate this recipe. It makes just one cookie. That’s it. Don’t worry about all those crazy leftovers!

I am posting this recipe for week 7 of the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookie Exchange. Week 7??? Christmas is getting so close! I’m so ready to start planning and decorating and celebrating :) I found this recipe on Picky Palate the other day. It’s a recipe that makes one (large) cookie. I’ve been experimenting with some “single-serving” recipes lately. I made cake in a mug the other night! It was really good. I didn’t post about it because the cake exploded out of the cup and looked not-so-pretty and I didn’t want to take a picture of the mess haha. But I will post about it eventually. I like the idea of making desserts that only have one (or a few) servings so I don’t have it around the house for the next week (uh oh. I’m starting to sound like one of those crazy grown-ups).

This cookie turned out great! Chances are you have everything you need to make it at home right now! And it’s a great way to use up some of that Halloween candy. I mixed in Reeses Pieces and pieces of Snickers. Mmm :) Now this cookie is really massive…I probably could have eaten the whole thing myself but I shared with my family. It has a great texture, the outside is crisp and the inside stays gooey. The only issue I had with it was that it turned out really salty. I don’t think it’s a fault in the recipe, though. I was probably being spacey and added too much salt. If I make it again, I’ll let you know if the results were as salty!

I would absolutely recommend that you make this. Make it for yourself and curl up with a warm cookie, some milk, and watch a good movie. That sounds so nice right now :)

Does that huge grease spot freak you out? Oh good. Me either.

Gigantic Peanut Butter Candy Cookie for One

Recipe from Picky Palate <— love all her recipes!

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar

2 tablespoons beaten egg

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 cup Reeses Pieces

3 mini snickers, chopped in 6 pieces each

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the butter and sugars until well blended.
  3. Crack egg in separate bowl and beat it. Measure out 2 tbs. of the egg and add it to the butter/sugars. Add the vanilla as well and mix well until combined.
  4. Stir in peanut butter and then add flour, soda, and salt. Mix until just blended.
  5. Stir in Reeses pieces and snickers chunks (or whatever other candy makes you happy!)
  6. Scoop all the dough onto the baking sheet in one big giant blob and bake for about 18 minutes (it will look totally raw but will keep cooking a bit after you take it out). Let it cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes.
  7. Enjoy all by yourself when you’re home alone…or share with others :)

Makes 1 super huge cookie

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by Amilia @justeverydayme in Baking, Dessert, Holiday/Seasonal Tags: , , ,

03 Nov 2011 10 Comments

Cookie Dough Balls…Sorta

This week has been not-so-fun. I’m glad most of it is over. I’m helping out at a middle school writing workshop tomorrow so I won’t be at school which will be amazing…I’ve had so much testing this week and it’s been miserable. And then there’s been some other stuff going on that has been kinda awful. But I’m hoping things will start getting easier :)

I’m sharing these for week 6 of the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookie Exchange. I can’t believe there’s only 6 weeks left! I got this recipe from Chocolate Covered Katie and V.K. Rees Photography. I’d seen Katie’s recipe for cookie dough dip a while ago and thought it sounded very…interesting! I saw this cookie ball version on V.K. Rees Photography and the photos were so beautiful they convinced me to make them today! (All her photography is incredible. I’m definitely inspired).

The interesting part of this recipe is that instead of flour, the dough is made out of Chickpeas. Umm yeah. But so many reviews said it was really good that I decided to take the chance and make it. If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t really like them…but that’s just me! I thought I’d still share the recipe because so many other people have had success with it. It’s really easy to make so you might as well give it a shot! If you like it, you’ll have a great, healthy dessert :)

Happy baking!

Healthy Cookie Dough Balls

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups chickpeas (1 can, drained)
1/4 tsp salt
tiny bit over 1/8 tsp baking soda
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 Tbs peanut butter (or another nut butter)
3 Tbs Agave Nectar (you can also use honey, brown sugar, or other sweetener. Adjust it to how sweet you want it to be)
4 Tbs mini chocolate chips
3 Tbs oats (optional)
8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

Directions:

  1. Put all ingredients, except for chocolate and oats, in a blender or food processor and blend until very smooth.
  2. Put mixture in a bowl and mix in oats and chocolate chips.
  3. Put the dough in the fridge/refrigerator until firm enough to form balls. When firm, use a small cookie scoop to make small balls of dough. Put them back in the freezer until firm.
  4. Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 20-25 second increments. Dip the balls in the melting chocolate until covered. Put them in the fridge so the chocolate shell can harden.
  5. Store these in the fridge!

Enjoy! (I hope ;)

I shared this on Fusion Friday :)

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by Amilia @justeverydayme in Baking, Dessert, Holiday/Seasonal Tags: ,

29 Oct 2011 12 Comments

Nutella Brownie Bites

I have had so much go on this week it’s been crazy! (I know I probably say that every week…but it’s true!)

At the beginning of the week, our car that hasn’t been working for the past 3 years magically started working again. I had a feeling it was just a fluke…but I was going to enjoy having a car for as long as it would last! On Tuesday I had to be at school early so I drove the car. Everything worked out great which was pretty awesome. I rode the bus on Wednesday and took the car on Thursday, since I had to stay after school for a bit. As I was leaving the school parking lot, I felt like the car just wasn’t running quite right. I thought I was just being paranoid. But soon the car starting vibrating, making some unpleasant noises, and the check engine light was flashing like crazy. The route home has a ton of hills and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it up some of them! I had the gas pedal pressed all the way to the floor and was going 15 mph….I felt bad for the long line of cars behind me. I kept praying that I would just make it home and thankfully I did! But that’s the end of us having a second car for the moment…oh well.


Friday was a very busy day. I got home from school and immediately left to go to my piano lesson. I came home and then turned around and left for my friend’s Halloween party! I was going to try to dress up but I didn’t have time to put a costume together. Instead, I put on my favorite ugly Christmas sweater, a Santa hat, and snowflake earring and went as a Christmas enthusiast…not much of a costume ;) Some other people had amazing costumes, though. My friend, Jesse, was Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas. She had ordered the dress and had her whole face painted green with stitches all over it. She also had a bright red wig made of yarn..pretty spectacular! Melanie had sewed a Christmas elf costume which was really cute…I totally want to steal it ;) and her boyfriend, Josh, was a penguin. My friend Kaitlyn was someone from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow…I haven’t watched the movie so I’m not sure, but her outfit was great. She had a fancy dress on with a cape that had roses on it. She had also powdered her face to make herself paler. Oh and let’s not forget Trevor! He was apparently a viking but I though he looked more like a yak. Just saying.

We had a ton of fun. We played catchphrase and watched the movie The Others. I’d never seen it before but I thought it was awesome! I don’t like scary movies but this one wasn’t really scary, just suspenseful (especially with the freaky music in the background). But I would definitely recommend this movie. After that we watched Tron (yes I know..random) for a while before we had to go. It was a really great night!


In my last post I shared these Nutella Swirl Brownie Bites and promised a second recipe! Here it is! These are Nutella brownies with only three ingredients- Nutella, egg, and flour. I wasn’t apprehensive if they’d turn out with such few ingredients but they magically did :) I took these along with the other brownie bites to my friend’s Halloween party and everyone loved them.

The Nutella Swirl Brownies are very fudgy while these brownies are more cake-like with a gooey center. They’re both very good. Most people liked the Nutella Swirl Brownies more than these, but it just depends on what kind of brownies you like! You can’t go wrong with making either of them. I hope you have a wonderful Halloween weekend!

Nutella Brownie Bites
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Slightly adapted from Savory Sweet Life.
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Ingredients:
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1 cup Nutella spread
2 large eggs
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
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Directions:
  1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a mini muffin pan with cupcake liners.
  2. Put the Nutella and eggs in a medium bowl and whisk until smooth and well blended. Add the flour and whisk until blended.
  3. Use an ice cream scoop to put the batter into the muffin tins.
  4. Bake for 11-12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out with some gooey crumbs.
Makes 20-24 brownies (depended on how much you fill the muffin tins).
Enjoy!
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by Amilia @justeverydayme in Baking, Dessert, Friends, Holiday/Seasonal Tags: , , ,

27 Oct 2011 18 Comments

Nutella Swirl Brownie Bites

Hello guys! I hope you’re all doing well. My life continues to be all crazy and busy but I’ve had a pretty good week. I’m posting today for week 5 of the 12 weeks of Christmas cookie exchange! I’m a tad late in posting but I didn’t get a chance to bake until I got home from school today (I’m just glad I made it home! I’ll write more about that later).

Tomorrow I am going to a Halloween Party at my friend’s house and I wanted to bring some sort of tasty dessert. I decided on bite sized brownies. Now, I have a confession to make…I have never made brownies from scratch..I know! Shocking! But really, the boxed brownie mixes are sooo tasty and cheap and easy to make that I just never felt the need to. But I knew I didn’t just want to make regular brownie bites..I wanted to make nutella brownie bites. I ended up making two different versions. Today I am posting the first version I made- chocolate brownie bites with nutella swirled into them. Deeeelicious!

I love undercooked brownies but I think I may have gone a little too far on the undercooked side…oops! They’re still super delicious but the baking time should have been a little bit longer. It was tough cause the recipe I was working on was made in a large pan, not a muffin tin, so I wasn’t sure how long to bake them for. Oh well! Bake and learn. Another thing I would change is that I would decrease the sugar a bit. They’re just a tad too sweet for me (and I love sugar). But I am really happy with these overall and am excited to bring them to the party!

Start with four ounces of baking chocolate. Why is one weirdly colored? Well it could have to do with the face that this chocolate was “best used” by March 2010. Haha yeah…hope I don’t poison anyone!

Mmm nutella!

Look at those pretty swirls!

I would absolutely recommend these for your Christmas baking, party you’re attending, or anytime you just need a little bit (or a lot ;) of chocolate! My family LOVED them!


Nutella Swirl Brownie Bites

Recipe adapted from Broma Bakery

Ingredients:

4 (one ounce) squares of Bakers unsweetened chocolate

3/4 cup butter

2 cups sugar (or 1 1/2 cups if you want them a little less sweet)

3 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup flour

1/2 cup Nutella

Directions:

  1. Heat oven to 350°F.
  2. Line a 24 mini muffin tin with muffin liners.
  3. Microwave chocolate and butter in microwaveable bowl on high for 2 minutes or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted (it takes a little while).
  4. Put the sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter/chocolate mixture to the sugar and stir until blended. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Now gradually add flour and mix well.
  5. Use a small cookie/ice cream scoop to divide the batter into the muffin tins.
  6. Put a small dollop of nutella on top of each brownie bite. Now take toothpick and swirl the nutella into the brownie (don’t mix it in, just swirl).
  7. Put in oven and bake from 12-15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Note: I got about 30 brownie bites when I made this but you could get 24 if you fill yours a little more. It’s easier if you only make 24 because that way you can bake everything in one batch.

I shared this on Fusion Fridays :)

Oh! And check out all the wonderful recipes from all the other Christmas bakers this week!

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by Amilia @justeverydayme in Baking, Christmas, Dessert, Holiday/Seasonal Tags: , ,

22 Oct 2011 2 Comments

Pumpkin Spice Scones

Baking is a stress-reliever for me, especially when I’m not doing it under pressure or with a deadline. This morning I woke up and decided I would make breakfast. My parents and youngest sister are at her soccer game and my middle sister is still sleeping (it’s 11am! pshh..teenager). So the house was quiet and peaceful (something that never happens!) and I got to just relax and enjoy baking these delicious pumpkin scones.

I have a confession to make…I don’t really like Starbucks. I know, I know…craziness. But I can’t drink coffee because caffeine gives me migraines, and they don’t have a ton of non-caffeinated options. Their hot chocolate is just so-so and I don’t really like their frozen non-caffeinated drinks. I think I would like a lot of their coffee drinks (pumpkin spice latte sounds pretty amazing) but oh well! All this to say, I haven’t had the famous Starbucks pumpkin scones but I found a lot of people posting the recipe on their blogs and I thought they sounded really good! So that’s what I decided to make this morning.

I used to make scones all the time. There’s a Joy of Baking recipe for scones that is absolutely incredible (I’ll have to make those and blog about them…the recipe isn’t available online anymore for some reason). I think scones are fun to make. They take some time but it’s fun :)

These scones have a powdered sugar and spice glaze. They have a nice pumpkin spice flavor. I can’t say if they’re better than the Starbucks version but they’re pretty darn good :) The only thing I didn’t like were that they came out a little dry and weren’t as flavorful as I would have like. My usual scone recipe still reigns supreme, but these are a very nice seasonal version.

Here are the scones without any of the glaze.

Action shot!

Umm yeah pretty tasty looking :)

Pumpkin Spice Scones
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Scone Ingredients:

1/2 cup canned pumpkin or pumpkin puree
3 tablespoons half-and-half
1 large egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I added 1 tsp)
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
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Powdered Sugar Glaze
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
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Spiced Glaze
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch of ground ginger
Pinch of cloves
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Directions:
  1. Preheat oven to 425°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper (I used aluminum foil because we were out of parchment paper).
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, half-and-half, and egg. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Add the pieces of cold butter and, using a pastry blender or fork, cut the butter into the flour until the mixture is crumbly and there are no large pieces of butter left. (You can use a fork, I have before, but a pastry blender makes everything much easier!)
  4. Gradually mix the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture, using wooden spoon. The mixture will be dry at first but will come together once all the wet ingredients are mixed in.
  5. On a well-floured surface, flatten and form the dough into a 12 inch x 4 inch x 1 inch-thick rectangle.
  6. Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, divide the rectangle into three equal pieces (you want each section to be a square), then cut each square into four smaller triangles by making an “X” through them. (I kinda failed at this leaving some deformed scones…don’t stress about it. It adds character :)
  7. Place scones on baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until just light brown. Remove to cooling rack and let cool before icing.
  8. To make the powdered sugar glaze, mix all ingredient together, then brush over the tops of cooled scones using a pastry brush.
  9. After the glaze has set (about 10 minutes or so), make the spiced glaze by mixing all ingredients together. Drizzle onto scones (I put mine in a Ziploc bag with the tip cut off).
Makes 12 Scones
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The original recipe says to let the spiced glaze set for about an hour! Craziness. I was hungry and wasn’t having any of that. It was still tasty :) I like my scones warm so I microwaved mine. And I put a little butter on mine. Because I’m health-conscious like that.
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Enjoy!
I shared this on Sweet as Sugar Cookies :)

 

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by Amilia @justeverydayme in Baking, Breakfast, Holiday/Seasonal Tags: , ,

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