Chocolate Chip Blondies

January 27, 2012 by · 9 Comments

Speaking of Blondes – I really like the new Blonde Roast at Starbucks. Apparently the Baristas have been told not to make any blonde jokes with customers….like when they order a tall blonde. I have to wonder how far Starbucks thought that name through before they brought it to market. Funny.

Jim went out with some work friends tonight and Ella is at our neighbor’s for a sleepover. I told Taylor we would have a “date night” and she responded to me “Mommy, I’m not having a date night with you. We are having a girls night out!” So, I went with that:-) The thing is, it has been a really long week and I went for a run before our “girls night out” so by the time we left the house I was getting super tired. As I type, we are back home and snuggling on the couch (actually now she is laying on her stomach and “accidentally” kicking me every ten seconds.) I told her she can watch any show and stay up until 9 o’clock – very exciting:-).

We did make a stop at Justice and the Kangaroo (which is a gas station.) One of her friends at school had a piece of Valentine’s candy and apparently she got it from the Kangaroo, so Taylor has begged me to stop there for the past week. So tonight I told her we would go and find her treat. The only problem is she couldn’t tell me exactly what it was. She said it was not like normal candy, but it was smooth like the palm of her hand (and then she made me feel how smooth her hand was.) I still have no idea what that candy was and I’m not sure that she does either. I let her get a little package of airheads and she seemed happy with that. We don’t buy candy very often so I guess it was exciting enough.

Speaking of exciting….these are AWESOME chocolate chip blondies. I will make these again and again. They are buttery and sugary and perfectly soft and doughy. They are thinner than your typical bar cookie or brownie, but they are thicker than your typical cookie. If you like a chewy chocolate chip cookie try these. They would be PERFECT as the base for a blondie sundae.

To top all of that excitement off they are super easy to make. It probably took me about 10-12 minutes total to get them into the pan to bake. I like to make cookies when I have plenty of time, but on a Sunday afternoon when we just want a treat to go with a nice dinner, I like to turn to easy, but delicious recipes like this. Enjoy!

Source: Taste of Home

Chocolate Chip Blondies
 
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Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients
  • 1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar
  • ½ cup butter, melted
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions
  1. Combine the brown sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla just until blended. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt and whisk until combined; add to brown sugar mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.
  2. Spread the mixture into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking pan. Bake at 350° for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

January 14, 2012 by · 6 Comments

I know I said I was trying to lighten things up this month, but in true Becki style I need some balance. I actually made these last month.

This recipe is one of my all-time favorite sweet confections. My mom made these, typically at Christmas, every year and now I usually make them as well. This year I decided to shake things up a bit (because we are crazy like that at my house) and make some with white chocolate. They turned out really well….I love the white chocolate candy Reese Cups, don’t you?

When I was young I was diagnosed with a slight peanut and milk allergy. I liked both so much though that I kept eating them. I had never been really all that bothered by them so I guess we didn’t think it necessary to totally avoid them. Seriously, milk and peanut butter were two of my favorite things. To give them up would have been tragic. Of course, if it was a life threatening allergy I’m sure my parents would have had me stop eating them altogether.

I started getting allergy shots for my “hay fever” and dust allergies and I guess we never really thought much more about it after that. Is hay fever really an allergy by the way? I will say that now when I eat nuts that haven’t been roasted my throat gets a bit itchy. If they are roasted they don’t seem to bother me…..it’s weird, I know. The same thing happens when I eat uncooked banana…yes, again, weird. I told my doctor about my banana problem and he told me to stop eating them…ok.

Anyways…

These bars are great – they are a bit sweet so we usually cut them into small little squares. They are also a breeze to make and pretty close to the real thing if I do say so myself!

These would make great treats for someone special on Valentine’s Day.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
 
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Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients
  • 1½ cups graham cracker crumbs
  • 1⅓ cup peanut butter (creamy)
  • 1½ sticks butter
  • 1 lb powdered sugar
  • ⅓ stick butter
  • 6 oz. chocolate chips (semi-sweet or white)

Instructions
  1. Melt butter and peanut butter together in a small pan over low heat (you can do this in the microwave, too.) Add cracker crumbs and powdered sugar. Mix well.
  2. Press into a buttered 9X13 pan.
  3. Melt ⅓ stick butter and chocolate chips together. Pour over peanut butter mixture and spread quickly.

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Pecan Pie

December 5, 2011 by · 4 Comments

One of my earliest memories of the south is visiting my relatives in Montgomery and filling a paper bag full of pecans. We were at the college where my Uncle worked (I think) and the pecans had fallen to the ground so we walked around and gathered them up. Thinking back, I really didn’t appreciate the full value of this little adventure. Especially since I am paying about 6 or 8 dollars for a bag of pecans.

I also remember being impressed with the red dirt and how everyone’s home is of bricks. My cousins told me that once my grandmother came down to visit from New York and made them grits and they didn’t like grits. That always makes me laugh a bit.

We don’t really have a lot of pecan trees here in North Carolina so I am not as fortunate to just wander through the park or yard and pick up pecans. I wonder if they can still do that in Montgomery?

Pecan pie happens to be Jim’s favorite. I love it, too, especially around Thanksgiving. So, when it was just us this year, I knew this would be our dessert. I realized on Wednesday that I had no corn syrup, so I wanted to find a recipe without it. When I came across this pecan pie on Allrecipes.com, I knew it would be perfect.

I used the perfect pie crust from Simply Recipes and it turned out perfect again. I am not sure if it is just that I am getting used to making the crust or that this particular dough is so easy to work with, but I am not messing with a good thing:-). It’s really yummy, too.

I loved this pie and let me tell you one thing. It is chock full of pecans. It’s almost like eating a pie crust full of candied pecans. The brown sugar and butter filling turns into a wonderful caramel and it tastes like the real deal.   You can actually see some of the caramel oozing out of the pie in the picture.  I do like the versions with the corn syrup, but this is definitely a nice and different alternative.

I added some fresh whipped cream on top as well. It might be nice spiked with a touch of Bourbon, but since I knew little ones would be eating a lot of the cream, I thought that was probably not the best idea.

Enjoy!

Pecan Pie
 
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Ingredients
  • 1 cup light brown sugar
  • ¼ cup white sugar
  • ½ cup butter (melted)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup chopped pecans

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. In a large bowl beat eggs until pale and fluffy. Stir in melted butter.
  3. Add the sugars and flour and mix until combined. Lastly, add the milk, vanilla and nuts.
  4. Pour this mixture into an unbaked 9 inch pie crust. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes and then reduce to 350 and bake an additional 30-40 minutes until done.

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Crumb-Topped Apple Pie

November 20, 2011 by · 5 Comments

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day here in North Carolina. Granted, the leaves are just past their peak, but the temps were glorious and the sun was shining. You can’t ask for much more. We threw some Chili Lime Chicken Burgers from Trader Joe’s (definitely try these the next time you are there) on the grill at lunch and topped them with some avocado and sriracha cilantro mayonnaise. Epic. For dinner we baked a ham and Jim made his mac and cheese. This pie was dessert.

By the way, the word dessert has two s’s and you can remember that because Strawberry Shortcake is a dessert. Nice, huh?

After lunch we did one of my favorite things and went for a long walk in the park.  We went over to one of our local parks that has a two-mile path around a lake.  You can also walk along some unpaved paths and that is what we did for about half of our walk today.  We went right down to the lake and let Bailey, our dog, go in the water.  She actually didn’t go in very far because she was on leash, but she at least got to get her paws wet.

We probably walked about 1.5 miles total.  Ella was a bit tired as she had a sleepover last night, otherwise we would have walked further.  Jim and I agreed that it was so beautiful we could have kept walking all day.  Taylor was a trooper today and kept ahead of us the entire walk.  I think she likes to be independent so walking ahead gives her that sense of freedom.

These are some pictures I snapped on our walk.  I haven’t taken many outdoor pictures with my new camera, so these are some of my first attempts.  It took me a while to get my settings correct, but I once I did they turned out pretty well.  We usually see lots of turtles at this park, but they weren’t out today.

Ella told me to snap this photo looking up at the trees.

We crossed this stream on a little bridge.  I thought it would make a nice shot because the stream leads your eye to the lake.

When we got home I baked this apple pie.  We couldn’t have a day like today and not have some type of fall dessert, now could we?

This is a great pie and we all liked the crumb topping a lot.  The filling cooks up to a caramel-like consistency which would really be wonderful all by itself.  I used the crust from Simply Recipes and it was great and very easy to work with (or maybe I am getting better at making pie crusts?)  It is an all butter crust.  I saved half of the dough for my pecan pie that I will make for Thanksgiving.  I used Golden Delicious apples for this pie.

Enjoy!

Crumb-Topped Apple Pie
 
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Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients
  • 1 recipe pie dough
  • ¼ cup all-purpose flour
  • 3 pounds Granny Smith apples (about 6 large), peeled, cored and cut into ½-inch-thick slices
  • ¾ cup white sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 recipe pie dough
  • ¼ cup all-purpose flour
  • 3 pounds Granny Smith apples (about 6 large), peeled, cored and cut into ½-inch-thick slices
  • ¾ cup white sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • ¼ cup packed light brown sugar

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Roll out your pie dough into an 11 inch circle and place in a 9 inch pie plate. Trim edges and then fold over to make a thick crust and then crimp. Place in the freezer for about 15 minutes.
  3. Combine apples, ¼ cup flour, white sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon. Combine and let sit for about 10 minutes stirring occasionally. Pour into pie shell and press down into the crust.
  4. For the crumb topping combine remaining 1 cup of flour, brown sugar and butter with fingers until combined thoroughly. Set aside. DO NOT TOP the PIE with this until after the first 35 minutes of baking.
  5. Place pie in the oven on top of a foil lined baking sheet. Bake for 35 minutes and then add the crumb topping. Bake for another 40-45 minutes or until topping is nicely browned.

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Chocolate Cake with Fluffy Seven Minute Frosting

October 27, 2011 by · 5 Comments

Jim’s birthday was the Sunday before we left on our trip and we had a really fun day watching football with friends and eating lots of really good food. I made the cake before we left and when we got home I still had to whip up the frosting. Thankfully, this recipe is so easy and if you have never tried a seven minute frosting you should really try it at least once.

Once I frosted the cake I let the girls put the sprinkles and candles on top.  They think it’s marshmallow frosting so it really appeals to little ones, too!  It gets really nice and fluffy and when it sits for a bit it has a crispy outside that is really nice. It’s not as sweet as buttercream and it goes wonderfully with a chocolate cake.

This is Jim’s favorite cake so now that I have made it a few times I can honestly say, it’s really simple to whip up.  His mom made this for him when he was little so I am sure that is why he requests it now.  It is very similar to the brown sugar frosting that we used in the spice cake last month. Typically you will need a double boiler, but this recipe has you add the melted sugar to the egg whites in your mixer so if you don’t have a double boiler no worries.  A candy thermometer is helpful, but not completely necessary.

I used this chocolate cake again and it turned out really nice.

Enjoy!

 

Fluffy Seven Minute Frosting
 
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Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients
  • 1¾ cups sugar
  • ½ cup water
  • 4 egg whites, room temperature
  • ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions
  1. Bring sugar and water to a boil. Boil for 3-4 minutes or until a candy thermometer reads 242 degrees F (firm-ball stage). Meanwhile, beat egg whites and cream of tartar in a mixing bowl until foamy. Slowly pour in hot sugar mixture; continue to beat on high for 7 minutes or until stiff peaks form. Add vanilla. Continue beating until frosting reaches desired consistency, about 2 minutes.

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