chewy chocolate chip oatmeal cookies

[Check out the recipe from How Sweet Eats.] You think you don't want to add all that cinnamon, but trust me, you do. It's amazing.

They are like granola bars. Chocolate chip, cinnamony granola bars...in cookie form. With more butter.

Totally acceptable (and delicious) for breakfast with your morning coffee.

I'm sad these only made about 20 cookies, because they lasted two days. Well, three days, but one cookie left over thanks to my hubby and brother-in-law doesn't count.

I had been craving chocolate chips and oatmeal in some combination and this satisfied that. Or, I mean, made me want more. These are so good. Make them!!

Cinnamon Roll Cake w/ Cream Cheese Frosting

As I mentioned quickly in my last weekend update post, and made - and ruined - a lot of frosting that weekend. I suppose it wasn't actually ruined, but I made a batch of cream cheese frosting that was runny and seemed unusable for a cake. I threw it in the freezer, knowing I would need to figure out some way to use it so it wouldn't get wasted.

The frosting was a brick (8 oz) of cream cheese, 1/4 c of butter, powdered sugar and a few spoonfuls of the other ruined frosting I made (but you could just use milk to loosen it up). The other frosting that got ruined was Whipped Cream Cheese frosting from Joy of Baking. I suggest you attempt making it, but don't add too much powdered sugar...or overwhip...it will just get more runny. I know I had it at the perfect stage and it tasted amazing, but I kept adding and whipping, hoping it would get just a little thicker, but somehow it kept getting RUNNIER. I have no idea what happened and it really hurt my self-esteem! I felt pretty useless in the kitchen after that. Anyway, the addition of that frosting helped smooth out my cream cheese frosting while giving it a nice flavor because of the addition of the marscapone cheese.

Anyway - the cinnamon cake recipe was from ptitchef.com (I did only two layers) and brown-sugar and cinnamon swirled in before baking like the cinnamon roll cake from my baking addiction. I really think the brown sugar-cinnamon swirl gave it an even more cinnamon-roll-esque flavor.

Sorry - didn't get many pictures until I had already half-eaten the cake...but everyone loved it,  including me! My dad begged me to whip up another one the other day! I suppose the frosting was still a little runny - but it was perfect for this cake.

Caramelitas

I was introduced to caramelitas when Josh and I were dating and I started joining his family for holidays and birthdays. Josh and his sister Alyssa share the same birthday and they would both get their choice of dessert - Josh's choice was always caramelitas.

Josh's gramma gave me the recipe for these after I had tried  to recreate them a few times unsuccessfully. Unfortunately it seems that I have misplaced the recipe...again...even though I found it recently and thought to myself, "must put this in a safe place so as not to lose it..." and of course, who knows where that "safe place" is, I sure don't.

I actually grabbed this recipe from cooks.com as the ingredients and instructions were very similar to what I remember Gram's recipe being. I made a very similar recipe almost a year ago now that I adapted to be more like the Caramelitas. This dough varies as it has eggs, whereas Gram's original recipe (and the one below) does not. Not sure which recipe we prefer...I'll have to try making the older recipe again!

Caramelitas
~ingredients~

2 c. flour
2 c. quick cooking rolled oats
1 1/2 c. packed brown sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. butter, softened

1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c. chopped nuts (opt.)
12 oz. jar (1 c.) caramel ice cream topping
3 tbsp. flour 

~instructions~

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 13X9 pan.
2. Blend crust ingredients till crumbly and combined. Press a little more than half of the crust into the pan, reserving the remaining for the topping.
3. Bake bottom layer for 10 min. 
4. Remove from oven, sprinkle chocolate chips, chopped nuts (I used pecans) and drizzle caramel sauce over. You can make your own caramel sauce or melt down caramels w/ some condensed milk if you don't want to use a jarred sauce. I actually used leftover apple caramel dip! (Though this made for very gooey bars - not necessarily a bad thing.)
5. Sprinkle remaining crust over the top and bake for 18-22 minutes.
6. Cut into bars after cooling.

Also, I'm borrowing my sister's D90 camera, fancier flash and our 35mm lens, so I'm hoping for better quality and better looking pics until she makes me give it back :)

strawberry cupcakes + vanilla cream frosting

It's not that I wanted to make cupcakes tonight. But you see, I had all these gorgeous strawberries and was so afraid they were going to go bad. Something had to be done.

 

Enter: my newest first-search for recipes. If you don't follow Jessica over at How Sweet Eats, there is seriously something wrong with you. Or maybe you've never heard of her blog, and that makes me sad. I love her funny posts, gorgeous pictures and amazing recipes. I've made several things from her blog including her homemade barbeque sauce, roasted potato salad (ah-ma-zing), and now these amazing strawberry cupcakes. Not to mention I've drooled over and bookmarked some of her beautiful mixed drinks and several desserts.

So, these strawberry cupcakes are pretty darn awesome. I almost ate a whole bunch without even adding the frosting. I think some strawberry jam or strawberries on top would have been really great, but I was afraid they would get all watery over the frosting.

Oh - and I didn't have any more cupcake liners. But that didn't stop me! A few years ago some of the SKANK's decided to make sweet potato cupcakes and follow a recipe online that instructed using parchment paper instead of liners. Of course we had only wax paper...which we didn't realize wasn't the same thing...and that was quite a disaster, pulling out the cupcakes, dumping the half-baked cuppies into real liners. Yikes. Won't make that mistake again.

Anyway, I thought these turned out super cute with the parchment lining. It worked best for me to fit and fold them into the cupcake tins and dollop only a little at a time inside the parchment cradle with a spoon. This allowed for the cuppies to bake around and flatten out the folds.

Awesome! And - I got this fabric from my boss's mom - she was giving away a bunch of random fabrics - and it turns out this is some Ralph Lauren HOME collection fabric! I really want to use it to make some pillows, they would look nice with our couches. Oh...sorry...tangent...

I used a vanilla buttercream for the frosting. I wish it could have been a white chocolate buttercream, but I didn't have any good quality white chocolate to use.

Vanilla Buttercream

~ingredients~
1/2 c butter (I used 1/4 c and 1/4 c shortening - that was all I had)
1 T vanilla (or more - I wanted a lot of vanilla flavoring in the frosting)
1-2 T heavy cream (as needed)
2-3 c powdered sugar

~instructions~

1. Cream everything together. That's it. Easy, huh?

Anyway, check out How Sweet Eats for the strawberry cupcakes recipe!

Anyone else have a semi-disastrous kitchen or baking episode??

Chocolate Whoopie Pies

Okay, if you're dieting...please just don't read this post. These Whoopie Pies are great, but they are definitely not low in the calorie department.

But they are so good! And so fun to make! They took a few hours and made quite a mess in the kitchen, but they were worth it.

The recipe is from The Novice Chef. I made mine using about 2 tablespoons of batter, resulting in Whoopie Pies that are about 4" in diameter. It made 13 pies and the exact amount of filling needed.

Also, we got this cute round table and pink metal chairs (2) for our outside "patio" area from my aunt & uncle. I love them! Can't wait to have some breakfast or dinner out there and enjoy the weather!

peach scones

my mum decided to stop by for a "quick" visit on Saturday after her garage sale-ing adventures. i had offered to have a tasty treat for us, but never made anything the night before. i searched online for something quick involving peaches, preferably that wouldn't need to be done with yeast or any fridge/freezer time.

i found this recipe for peach scones from King Arthur Flour. they tasted pretty darn good, though they didn't brown up like they should have and didn't shape up very attractively. i think i mixed them too much after adding the peaches (because i felt like they weren't incorporating), so i had too much peach juice spread throughout. i also meant to brush with milk and add some sugar crystals on top, but totally forgot until it was too late. the flavor of the scones was yummy, though and i suggest you make them. just remember not to over-mix after the peaches go in and to add some pretty sugar on top.

these peaches are seriously amazing. i got them from Mason Farms this past Thursday and they are so tasty. not sure where they are from though, too early for peaches in Erie...

also, we had another batch of crazy clouds, hail and tornado warnings in Erie on Saturday. the tornado warnings weren't very serious as there weren't any touchdowns reported, and all the action was much more south than we were located.

however, this hail was nuts. i mean, crazy-sized chunks of ice being chucked from the sky, bouncing off everything and sounding like someone was pelting rocks at our door. craziest thing i've ever seen. i apologize for the nuts-o pics, mum was in front of me and i was shooting from behind the screen door.

strawberry cream cheese tart

i bookmarked this recipe from Annie's Eats as soon as she put it on her blog a few weeks ago. i could not wait to try this. it pretty much tastes as amazing as it looks.

i found the tart/pastry portion definitely the most challenging and time consuming. i refrigerated it for an hour but it still proved extremely hard to get off my silicon pastry mat and into the tart pan (which i had picked up earlier in the day for $8.50 at Wegman's). i ended up rolling out the dough, freezing it for about 10 minutes, then i was able to get it in the tart pan a lot easier. definitely need to work on my tart-pastry skillz as the dough could have been a little more evenly dispersed...however, it still tasted great.

my chocolate ganache was actually left over ganache from the freezer from my birthday cake. it worked really well, even with the little bit of peanut butter that was in the ganache. it was perfect because i didn't have to spend extra money on more chocolate or any heavy cream and it saved 10-15 minutes of time.

also, these strawberries - AMAZING. they tasted so good. and arranging them like this? took 5 minutes. it looks gorgeous but is so easy and quick. anyone can do it!

check out the recipe here and try it for yourself! it was a big hit at our Memorial Day celebration with family!

today i also got to use the 35mm lens that my sister and i purchased together last year. it's not been working well on her cameras and she doesn't have any shoots soon so i get to hang out to it for a while. my camera is dinkier and less fancy, so maybe that is why it's been working better for me. so! i enjoy these pictures more because i finally got to use a good lens!!

double chocolate chip [sandwich] cookies

so, the main reason i made these cookies was because i wanted to use up some leftover frosting in the freezer.

that is acceptable, right?

recipe from Real Simple. i added all i had left for chocolate chips as well as some chopped white chocolate. i also used shortening instead of butter...because i didn't have any butter.

 

yum.

my favorite was the browned butter cream cheese frosting cookie sandwich. also, i haven't tried the strawberry butter-cream or chocolate ganache sandwich cookies because i probably ate about five cookies before they made it into the oven so...that's enough for one night. maybe.

banana cupcakes with browned butter cream cheese frosting

i swear i only made these because i had a banana that had gone bad and i will not waste things. especially when you can make said things into deliciousness such as this.

cupcake recipe from Food Network: The Neelys. browned butter cream cheese frosting recipe originally from Big Red Kitchen. the cupcakes were AMAZING. they had sour cream (interesting addition) and were super moist and delicious. i used shortening instead of butter so i could save that for the frosting. and of course i made my alterations - only had one banana so the whole recipe was halved and the cream cheese recipe was made up as i went to accommodate for the 8 cuppies. (about 2 T butter, browned; 2 T butter softened; 2 T cream cheese; probs about a cup of powdered sugar and a few drops of milk to keep a good consistency.)

turns out the cupcakes were a little warm still...turns out that is a great thing.

i'm only sorry i could only make 8 cupcakes and that i'm going to eat them all and no one else will know the greatness that is these cupcakes!

s'more cupcakes: graham cracker cupcakes

i've been craving s'mores cupcakes for a LONG time. well, s'mores in general. anytime the weather gets nice - i want that melty chocolate, graham cracker crunch, crispy outside/gooey inside marshmallow goodness.

these s'more cupcakes were a little different than what you usually see when browsing the web, but amazingly delicious. graham cracker cupcake goodness, melted chocolate delight on top and oozing in the middle, easy marshmallow frosting on top.

the cupcakes alone were amazing. great texture, great flavor. not to mention the other bits of deliciousness on top.

graham cracker cupcakes recipe from Nabisco. (i made a 1/2 batch because i didn't have enough graham cracker crumbs. i still used the 2 eggs, but everything else was halved.) my plan was to pipe the chocolate goodness inside the cupcake, but the chocolate didn't really want to cooperate, so i ended up smearing some on top as well. the frosting recipe adapted from Rachael Ray. since i ended up with only about 10 cupcakes, i had to alter this recipe too. i did 4-5 T butter, around a teaspoon of vanilla, about 1/2 cup of marshmallow fluff and about 1/4 cup (eyeball it) of powdered sugar.

i used this "cake decorating" tool for the first time, even though i had purchased it years ago. this was SO much easier than piping from a bag - way more control, way easier to fill and do you see that image below? yeah, no wasted frosting. every ounce scraped out.

also, isn't that fabric cute that the cupcakes are on? it's actually an apron (with an "A" on it!) that i received at my bridal shower. i don't use it as much as i should...(i always forget to put aprons on...) but the pattern i thought was perfect for something different than my usual countertop or tablecloth pics.

chocolate lava cakes (for two!)

if my husband asks me, "are you making (carmelitas, brownies, cookies, cake, cupcakes, s'mores bars, etc) tonight?" i'm in no way the kind of person to say, "not a chance, i'm fat and need to go on a diet."

i always say, "let me see what i can make." and search for yummy things i can make with what's in the cupboard. so yes, this is part of the reason why i've gained 15 pounds since being married.

i found this awesome recipe on Budget Bytes after searching "chocolate cake for two." i've made a similar recipe before which involved lots of (Godiva) chocolate, heavy cream, rolling said chocolate and cream into balls, chilling them, making the batter, combining the two, baking and devouring. though those lava cakes were scrumptious - this cake was just as amazingly delicious and SO MUCH EASIER. also, way cheaper - because you can use chocolate chips (which most people have on hand) and all the other ingredients are basic staples as well (flour, eggs, white sugar and butter).

yes this cake has lots of butter. yes it has an ooey gooey delightful center (when pulled out before the center sets). check out the recipe here at Budget Bytes and browse her site. she has a lot of great ideas for tight budgets and lists the cost per serving/meal as well (pretty cool).