Candy Cane Cookies

Happy Friday, and welcome to another weekly installment of Christmas Cookies with myself and Laura! This week, E helped me tackle candy cane cookies. It's sort of like playing with Play-Doh, but with cookie dough instead. Also more delicious.

originally found here

Ingredients

1 box (or bag) sugar cookie mix
1/2 stick butter, melted
1 egg
1/3 cup softened cream cheese (which is 2 and 1/3 oz of a stick)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, plus additional for surface
Red food coloring
1 1/2 teaspoons peppermint extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325. In a bowl (I, as always, used my stand mixer), combine sugar cookie mix, melted butter, egg, cream cheese, and flour; mix together to form dough. 

 

 

 

 

2. Separate dough into 2 equal portions and place in 2 different bowls. I divided the dough then put one of the halves back in the stand mixer bowl.

 

3. Add red food coloring gradually to one bowl of dough, kneading together until desired shade of red is created. I kneaded the red dough in my stand mixer (with the dough hook attachment) to keep the red food coloring from getting all over the place.

 

 

 

4. Add peppermint extract to uncolored dough and knead together. (This was E's job.) 

 

 

5. On a floured work surface, takes small chunks of each dough, and roll into 1/4-inch-wide ropes (or "worms," as E so charmingly called them), each about 6 inches long. For each cookie, carefully twist  the red and white ropes of dough together and shape into a candy cane. 

 

 

 

 

6. Spread candy canes out on cookie sheets and bake on the top shelf of the oven for about 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool before serving.

 

 

can you guess which ones E made? :)

 

 

E had a lot of fun with this recipe, but it is NOT for the perfectionist. I had a hard time letting go of my need to make the candy canes look like candy canes and just having fun with it, but once I did, we had a blast. :) And then things got weird...

Once we got tired of making candy canes, we decided to use cookie cutters on the rest of the dough. The only cookie cutters I own are Star Wars (Yoda, R2D2, and Vader), however, so it looks like Santa is getting a candy cane, some nerd-dom, and a peppermint candy (or planet?) -shaped cookie for his snack this year. ;) It's okay, they're delicious no matter what form they take. 

Don't forget to check out I do deClaire for another Christmas cookie recipe! Looks like this week is mint themed! 

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Pumpkin Spice M&M Cookies

Hey guys, guess what? This is my 100th post! To celebrate, I'm sharing a recipe that I came up with yesterday after buying these bad boys at Target:

I took one bite and decided they would be delicious in some pumpkin spice cookies. This recipe is a slight modification of my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, and halved for the sake of making a manageable amount.

Ingredients (makes about 16)

1 cup + 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pumpkin spice

1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 stick butter, melted
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1  cup Pumpkin Spice M&Ms (I picked out all the green ones, and the orange and brown ones in the package ended up being exactly 1 cup. Green is not a pumpkin spice color.)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, pumpkin spice and cinnamon in small bowl. Combine melted butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large bowl and beat until creamy. Add egg and beat well. Beat in flour mixture. 

 2. Stir in M&Ms.

3. Spoon dough onto cookie sheets fitted with parchment paper. Try to keep little hands from swiping the dough off the sheet.

4. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. 

E said they "weren't too bad" (gee thanks), but J said they were delicious, and I'm with him. We let E have one, then set one more aside for her for the next day, and then sat down with the rest of the batch and gobbled them up with glasses of milk and some Castle after she went to bed. No regrets. I'm probably going to make these again this weekend for when we get back from the pumpkin patch, to snack on as we carve our pumpkins.

Here's to pumpkins, pumpkin spice, cookies, and another 100 posts! 

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Banana Pumpkin Bread Muffins with Cranberries

E loves to help me. She loves to help clean, do dishes, do laundry, and cook. It's awesome, and I hope it stays that way, but sometimes it's hard to find ways for her to actually help. When it comes to cooking/baking, she is now my official stir-er. I measure the ingredients, she dumps them in and whisks them together. It's a pretty great system, and I hope it instills in her a love for cooking. I didn't learn much growing up, and am mostly self-taught. Knowing that she will at least have a foundation for cooking and baking for herself, and an appreciation of food and ingredients, makes me all kinds of warm and fuzzy inside (I think it's a mom thing). Bonus: when she's old enough, it'll be a great way to teach her fractions! I love my little sous chef.

Yesterday, she and I made these muffins. The original recipe is for a loaf of bread, but muffins are just so much easier to grab in the morning, instead of having to slice off a piece. I have one muffin tin, and one cupcake tin, and the batter was enough to fill both.

Ingredients

2 ripe bananas, mashed

2 eggs

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 1/3 cups canned pumpkin puree

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 cup craisins (other options: raisins or chocolate chips)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare your muffin pans (I used cupcake liners for the cupcake tin, and baking spray on the muffin tin).

2. In a large bowl, stir together the mashed banana, eggs, oil, pumpkin, honey, sugar, and brown sugar. (Fun fact: after she mashed the bananas, E informed me that they weren't bananas any more, they were soup.)

3. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pie spice and cinnamon in a medium bowl, and whisk together. 

4. Whisk the flour mixture into the banana mixture until just combined. Fold in the craisins. Spoon batter into prepared pans.

how full I filled my tins, for reference

5. Bake for 25 minutes for cupcake-sized muffins, and 35 minutes for muffin-sized muffins (ha), or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Move pans to cooling racks for about 10 minutes, then remove muffins from pans and complete cooling. 

mini-muffins

regular muffins

These are really moist, flavorful, and perfect for breakfast as they are not too sweet. Plus I hear bananas and pumpkin are good for energy! 

PS: I am creating a new label for the recipes E helps me with called "little helper recipes" so that, if anyone is interested, you can find recipes that are easy to do with your preschooler. I hope you find it helpful!

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Pumpkin No-Bake Cookies

My husband's favorite cookies are no-bakes. Which, I'm not even sure how to process that, as I consider myself to be a bake-er (not to be confused with a professional baker--one day!), and he's like "hey, can you not-bake me some cookies?" Sure, baby, whatever you want.

So when I came across this recipe for pumpkin no-bakes, I knew I wanted to make them for him (and for me, let's be honest here). And they ended up being a delicious treat and a nice surprise for him to come home to. Serious wife points here. :)

Ingredients (makes 1 dozen small cookies)

3/4 cup quick oats
1/2 cup oat flour (make your own by blending oats in a food processor until they become powder. I needed about 3/4 cup oats to make 1/2 cup oat flour.)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/3 cup canned pumpkin
2 to 2 1/2 tablespoons milk, as needed
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl and stir.

2. In a small bowl, combine all liquid ingredients (including pumpkin). Whisk to combine.

3. Pour liquid ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until well incorporated.

4. Let the mixture set up in the fridge for about half an hour (this makes them easier to work with), then form into balls and allow to set on a cookie sheet fixed with parchment paper.

Easy peasy, delicious, and fall-y? Yes please!

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Today is J's birthday (happy birthday, baby!), so I wanted to have E help me make something special for him. Since she's a pro at making cookies, I decided on pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I found this recipe, and halved it. And it wasn't until I'd already started throwing ingredients together that I discovered that I was out of eggs, so I used the old banana substitute (1 banana = 1 egg). This ended up working out in my favor, since it's easier to halve a banana than it is an egg. 

I'm writing this up exactly as I made it, but if you want to make more, you can use the original recipe's measurements, and if you actually have eggs and you want to use them, well you just go right on ahead. I will say, however, that it was kind of nice not having to worry about there being raw eggs in the dough, because E and I are both bowl-lickers. ;)

Ingredients (I ended up with 20 cookies)

 1/2 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 banana, smashed

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp milk

1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Combine pumpkin, sugar, oil, and banana in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. 

2. Dissolve baking soda in milk, and stir into flour mixture. Then add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and stir until well combined.

3. Add vanilla and chocolate chips, stir until incorporated.

4. Spoon dough out onto baking sheet fixed with parchment paper (or sprayed with baking spray). Bake for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm. 

I'm not even mad about the banana being in there, because while you can taste it a little bit, the flavor goes really well with the pumpkin and cinnamon and chocolate. It fits right in. And it didn't seem to affect the texture of the finished product at all, either. These are just as gooey and soft as you'd expect a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie to be. And J gives them a big thumbs up, which is really the important part because they're his birthday treat. :) 

To further celebrate his birthday (and mine, since it's next week), we are going on a date tonight-- for the first time in months. I'm super excited, and I'll be back Monday with pictures! In the meantime, I hope you all are having a lovely weekend!

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Butter Garlic Pizza Crust Recipe

adapted from here

As you may know, we're pizza fans around here. I've been having a lot of fun trying to mix up the pizza every week so that it doesn't get old (even though I don't think pizza could ever get old). I've mixed up the toppings and the sauces, so I decided it was time to mix up the crust as well. I may never make it the old way again, the butter and garlic is soooo delicious. Like whoa.

Ingredients

1 cup water
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1 pkg active dry yeast
2 to 3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry oregano (or 1 teaspoon fresh, finely chopped)
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 tablespoon garlic salt 

Directions: 

1) Mix the water and sugar. Pour in the yeast and give it a stir. Let it sit for 5 minutes to allow yeast to activate.

2) In a bowl (I used my stand mixer bowl) combine the flours, salt and oregano (I used fresh simply because I actually had it in the house for once). Pour in the yeast mixture and oil. Stir until a dough ball forms (I used my dough hook attachment). Knead for 5-6 minutes, until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl. At this point, my dough was still way too sticky, so I ended up adding almost another whole cup of flour (1/4 cup at a time until I reached the correct consistency). Place in a bowl with a little olive oil, turning to coat, cover and allow to rise for 1 1/2 hours.

  3) Punch dough down. Place on a pizza pan that has been lightly brushed with olive oil. Melt the butter and stir in the garlic salt. Brush the entire crust with the garlic butter mixture. I also sprinkled it with the remaining oregano because I chopped a little more than I needed for the crust (you could, again, also use dried). 

4) Bake at 450°F for 5 minutes. Brush with any remaining garlic butter and add your sauce, cheese and toppings. Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes.

The toppings this time were tomatoes and bacon, plus mushrooms on his side because he's weird and likes to eat fungus. Can you see the butter oozing out from under the cheese? Yeah. Not the healthiest way to eat pizza, but damn if it's not tasty.

Oh hey! Before you go, you might want to skip on over to My New Favorite Outfit today. You may or may not find a guest post and a giveaway!

Homemade S'mores Poptarts

I love Poptarts. My favorite is the s'mores flavor, because who doesn't love an excuse to eat chocolate for breakfast? But I wanted to try and make my own at home, because why not? So here you go:

Ingredients

1 pkg (2 sheets) puff pastry (makes 6)

6 large marshmallows

1 1/2 Hershey's chocolate bars

graham crackers

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Lay out your puff pastry sheets (I recommend laying down a little bit of flour first- I didn't and they stuck a little bit). Cut each sheet into sixths. On half the rectangles, lay down 1/4 of a Hershey bar (3 little rectangles), a marshmallow split in half, and crumble a little graham cracker on top.

2. Lay the other half of the puff pastry rectangles on top of the ones that have the s'mores filling. Pinch the edges together with a fork. Move your poptarts to a baking sheet with parchment paper. Bake for approximately 15 minutes, or until pastry turns golden brown and flaky.

As you can see, one of my poptarts oozed some marshmallow because I didn't seal it well enough, but it didn't affect the taste at all, so it's not a big deal if this happens to you. 

These are a million times better than regular s'mores Poptarts. They're so warm and flaky and gooey, it's hard to believe they're an acceptable breakfast food. Maybe at this point they aren't. But that didn't stop me from eating them from breakfast. Nope.

Better Than Hawaiian Pizza

 I love pizza. It's a blank canvas for whatever sauce and toppings your little heart desires, and whatever flavor profiles you can dream up.

One of my favorites is the classic but delicious Canadian bacon and pineapple pizza, aka Hawaiian pizza. I wanted to come up with a "fancier" version, if you will, for our last pizza night, and here's the results:

Ingredients

pizza dough
and as much or as little as you want of these:
pizza sauce 
Canadian bacon
pineapple
spinach
feta cheese

Prepare your pizza dough, throw all the toppings on top, then pop it in the oven for about 15 minutes and enjoy.

This is the first time I've used feta on a pizza and I must say, it's a winner. It doesn't melt, but rather gets a little bit toasted on top, and the flavor goes oh so well with the Canadian bacon and pineapple.

 Did I mention I love pizza?