This past weekend I decided to make some chocolate mint cookies for my husband. My husband isn’t the biggest fan of sweets (yes….I married a weirdo) but he does like chocolate mint sweets. I crushed up some peppermint soft stick candy and mixed them into a chocolate sugar cookie dough. I was SO excited to bake these and really wanted them to turn out well. They didn’t.
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I love having fresh homemade biscuits for breakfast and they are easier to make than you may think. The dough comes together in only a few minutes and within 15 minutes you’ll be enjoying hot biscuits from the oven. Most biscuit recipes use a lot of butter, making them very high in fat. I used light margarine for the recipe instead and the results were great! The biscuits were tender and flaky without all the fat! When using margarine in recipes, use a brand with at least 5 grams of fat and use 3/4 the amount of butter called for to compensate for the extra water content. I served these with my super secret gravy but they go equally well spread with butter or jam.
Okay, I’ll let you in on the secret gravy. The recipe is quite time consuming and difficult, but the results are well worth it. Ready?
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Its really depends on my mood as to what type of cookie I crave–whether crispy, chewy, or cakey. For times when I’m craving a chewy cookie, this is the recipe I use. This recipe calls for bread flour and melted butter, which helps to produces a nice big chewy cookie.
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I love crumb topping, so much so that I would rather just eat the topping and not whatever is beneath it. Besides, we all know that things such as coffee cake and muffins are just a vehicle for the crumb topping. I decided to make these muffins as way to satisfy my craving for crumb topping. The muffins are only slightly sweet and have a fairly strong coffee flavor, which complements nicely with the topping. These muffins are also low in fat thanks to nonfat yogurt and egg whites.
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I have been a huge fan of Nicole Weston’s blog Baking Bites for a few years now. She recently published a cookbook, which I love. Her book has delicious recipes that are all very approachable. One of the recipes is for white chocolate oatmeal crunch brownies. Don’t let the name fool you, these are not chocolate brownies but white chocolate blondies. I knew I HAD to make these as I absolutely love blondies, maybe even more so than brownies!
The blondies have a thin crunchy oatmeal cookie base, which contrasts wonderfully with the chewy blondie layer. These are truly delicious, making it hard to stop at eating just one!
White Chocolate Oatmeal Crunch Brownies
From The Baking Bites Cookbook by Nicole Weston
Makes 20Ingredients:
Crust:
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup oatmeal
1/3 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
1/3 cup butter, melted and cooled
Brownies:
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2-oz white chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extractDirections:
Make cookie base: Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with aluminum foil, for easy removal later.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, brown sugar, oatmeal and coconut. Pour in melted butter and stir to combine. Pour into prepared 8-inch square baking pan (pan can be ungreased if not using foil). Bake for 12 minutes.Make brownie batter: Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.
In another small bowl, melt white chocolate and butter together in the microwave. Set aside to cool.
Whisk together sugar and egg until light colored. When butter mixture is no longer hot, stir it into the egg mixture. Stir in the flour mixture, milk and vanilla extract, whisking until no streaks of flour remain.
When cookie base comes out of the oven, gently pour brownie batter on top and spread it out carefully with a spatula or the back of the spoon. The crust will not be set yet, so try to be gentle as you move the batter towards the corners of the pan. Return to oven and bake for 30 minutes.Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.
All this snow and cold weather has me wishing I was on the beach, sipping a fruity drink out of a coconut. Since that won’t be happening anytime soon, I decided to make some coconut cookies with a creamy Malibu rum filling. One bite of these cookies and it’s like you’re right on the beach!
My husband and I came over to my parents house to help them dig out from the snow. While there, my mom requested that I make a recipe for Finnish cardamom bread that she found in a magazine. My mom doesn’t have a bread machine so I made the bread entirely by hand.
Everyone here in nothern Virginia is starting to dig themselves out of the 2 ft+ of snow we got this past weekend. Most people are out of power and I am only writing this now with the help of a generator. So what better to warm everyone up than with a loaf of fresh banana bread?
I’ve tried a lot of banana bread recipes, but nothing compares to my mom’s recipe. It’s dense, moist, and packed full of banana flavor! The only thing I don’t like about her recipe is that it is very high in fat and calories, so I decided to makeover her recipe. The original recipe has276 calories and 13.9 grams of fat per slice. The made-over recipe has 195 calories and 8 grams of fat per slice, with the same texture and yummy flavor. In fact, my mom said she couldn’t even tell the difference!!
Fact: It’s never too cold for ice cream.
I love ice cream and don’t mind eating it even when its cold and snowing outside…..like it is right now. Unfortunately, I’m also lactose intolerant and can only eat a few bites of real ice cream before my stomach starts to get upset. Lactose free ice cream can be hard to find in stores and has a very limited flavor selection. So, for a while now, I have been experimenting with making my own lactose free ice cream. My latest flavor, hot chocolate, is quick and easy to make.
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