Chocolate Chip Pan Chewies

 This pan of treats can be ready, start to finish in half an hour.  No, really.  Easy, easy. And so yummy and chewy.

Chocolate Chip Pan Chewies

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 tsps. vanilla

1 cup self-rising flour OR 1 cup flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/ 4 tsp. soda

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350

Prepare a 9x9 pan by spraying it well.

In a large bowl, stir together the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla.  When well mixed, add the self- rising flour or flour mixture.  Blend well.  Add the chocolate chips and mix in.  Spread in the prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes.  Cut and serve.  Great warm, topped with ice cream.

Original recipe from 12 Tomatoes.

Sea Salt Caramel Chocolate Oreo Pie

Two of my kids made this together tonight.

1 package of Oreo's
1 cup (two sticks, 16 Tbsp.) of Butter, divided
2/3 cup Brown Sugar
1 1/4 Heavy Whipping Cream, divided
1 bag (12 oz.) chocolate chips (you can use dark or milk, we prefer milk)
Flaky sea salt, such as Kosher salt

Crust:
Finely crush the Oreo's (with a food processor, or in a bag with a rolling pin) and combine with 1 stick or 8 Tbsp. melted butter. Press into the bottom and sides of a pie pan and freeze for at least 10 minutes.

Caramel Layer:
In a small saucepan combine the remaining 8 Tbsp. of butter with the brown sugar and whisk constantly until the mixture begins to bubble, then for a additional minute. Remove from heat and slowly whisk in 1/4 cup whipping cream until smooth. Then let the Caramel cool for approximately 15 minutes before pouring over the crust, then chill in freezer for 30-45 minutes, but you don't want to let the caramel to completely freeze.

Chocolate Layer:
Pour the chocolate chips into a glass bowl and the whipping cream into a saucepan. Once the cream is at a simmer remove from heat and pour over chocolate chips and let sit for 5 minutes (or really until the chocolate chips begin to melt), then whisk until completely smooth. Pour the chocolate over the caramel and return to freezer for a final 30 minutes or put it, covered, into the fridge.
Before serving, sprinkle the sea salt over the pie.

This dessert is very rich but so delicious. My daughter chooses this as her "birthday cake" every year.

Brownie Cookies

These are delicious, chewy brownie-like cookies.  They have crispy edges with chewy, gooey middles.

Brownie Cookies

3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup butter, cut up

6 large eggs
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon +1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder

In a sauce pan on low, melt the butter and chocolate chips together.  Stir and stir until all melted.  Turn off heat and set aside.

Then put the eggs, sugars, vanilla, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of mixer.  Mix together and then beat on high for 5 minutes.
Reduce speed to low and add the cooled chocolate mixture.  Mix another several minutes until well combined.
Stir in the flour and cocoa.  Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Turn on the oven to 350
Drop onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Each cookie should be about 1 1/2 Tablespoons of dough.  Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes.  The edges of the cookies should be crisp, with the middles soft.  Cool and enjoy!

Hello Dolly Bars

If I had to choose my very favorite dessert of all-time, it would be probably be a tie between chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (and ala mode doesn't hurt anything) and these bar cookies- Hello Dolly Bars.  I have been making them for years.  I can remember making them when I was expecting our first daughter.  That is 40 years ago!  They are delicious and very easy to make.

Hello Dolly Bars
1 cup butter, melted
2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
2 cups pecans, chopped
2 cups coconut
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup milk chocolate chips (or you can use more semi sweet)

Preheat oven to 350
In a medium bowl, mix together the crumbs and butter.  Press into the bottom of a 13x9 pan.  Layer the chocolate chips, pecans and coconut.  Drizzle the milk over all.  Bake for about 30 minutes.  Take out of oven and sprinkle on the milk chocolate chips.  Let cool, then refrigerate until well set.  Cut into bars.

4th of July Popcorn

Want a fun treat for the Fourth of July?  This is so easy and delicious. It is sweet, salty, and buttery and crunchy.   And you probably have all the ingredients!

4th of July Popcorn
3 bags microwave popcorn, buttered variety
1 cup sugar x3
2 Tablespoons butter x3
1/4 cup water x3
Red and blue food coloring

First pop the corn according to the package directions.  Lay out waxed paper on your countertop or in large cookie sheets.  In a large kettle, combine 1 cup of sugar, 2 Tablespoons of butter and 1/4 cup of water.  Bring to a boil and boil for about 3  1/2 -4 minutes (If it starts to brown, take off heat immediately.)    Take off of the stove.  Mix in 1 bag of the popped corn.  Stir and stir until all the popcorn is coated.  Lay the candied corn out on the waxed paper.  Cool completely while you wash the pan.  Put the candied corn in a very large bowl, leaving the waxed paper for the next batch.  Then do the 2nd batch.  This time add a few drops of red food coloring after you take the cooked mixture off the stove.  Be sure to add enough that it makes red and not pink.  Then repeat with the third batch, this time adding blue food coloring.  Be sure to add enough color so the colors are vibrant!    Mix the three colors together in the large bowl, then store in an airtight container. 

Brownie Chip Cookies

This recipe is so easy and the cookies turn out soft and gooey and yummy.  It's one I can make in Japan because of Costco and brownie mixes!  I just made a big batch (double)  to take to the English class we teach. 

Brownie Chip Cookies
1 package brownie mix
2 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1 cup chocolate chips (it can be a mixture of white chocolate and semi-sweet)
Heat oven to 350 (180 C)
Mix the eggs and oil in a bowl.  Add the brownie mix and stir.  The dough is kind of hard to stir because it is stiff.  Spoon onto a well-greased or lined cookie sheet.  Bake 8-10 minutes.  Cookies should be soft and crackled.  Cool slightly before removing from the pan.

Homemade Oreo Cookies

Need cookies fast?  Keep two boxes of devils food cake mix and a can of frosting in your pantry, and you can have cookies start to finish in about 15 minutes.  These are yummy, too- way better than store-bought Oreos!

Homemade Oreo Cookies
2 Devils Food Cake mixes
4 eggs
1 cup oil
1 can cream cheese frosting

Heat oven to 350.  Mix cake mixes, eggs, and oil in a bowl until combined.  Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet.  Bake about 8 minutes.  Cookies should still be soft.  Let cool.  When cool, stick two cookies together with the frosting.  Easy as that!

No Bake Cookies

Okay, daughters, what's the first word that comes to your mind when you see this recipe?
Tradition?
Sunday night?  (oh, that's two words)
Doesn't it just make you smile to think about seeing the waxed paper out on the counter top with just a few missing cookies- with only a chocolate smear where the cookie used to be and was consumed before set up?
Yes, nearly every Sunday evening our daughters would make (and consume) these cookies. I, like every other college student, learned to make them from a roommate.  I have to admit, since my daughters left home, I haven't made them very often or at all.  I guess I need to start making them for the grand kids!

No Bake Cookies

Put a large piece of waxed paper on the counter top, ready for later. 

In a large mixing bowl, mix together

3 cups oatmeal

1/4 cup cocoa

In a large saucepan, combine:

2 cups sugar

1/3 cup butter

1/2 cup milk

As the butter melts, stir and combine.  Bring to a boil and boil 1 minute.  Remove from heat and stir in

1/2 cup peanut butter.

Pour hot mixture over the oatmeal mixture.  Stir to combine well.  Drop large spoonfuls onto the waxed paper   Let cool completely (if you can!) and then remove from waxed paper.  Store in an airtight container.

Original source:  Debbie Shorb 

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe in the World

I love chocolate chip cookies.  They are the best kind of cookie, in my opinion.  For several years, I've been on a search for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe in the world.  There are claims of such all over the Internet, and I've tried many of them.   I don't make cookies that often, so it's taken awhile, but I think I've come up with the recipe I like best.  It's a combination of my long standing one I got from my sister, Joan and one from Alton Brown on Foodnetwork.com.  They are very similar recipes, but I just combined the parts I like best about each one.  They are soft and chewy in the center and a little crispy on the edges.
 There are some secrets to the perfect chocolate chip cookie:
1) Always melt the butter (and use real butter) in the recipe.  Melted butter makes the cookie so much better.
2) Always chill the dough in the refrigerator before you bake the cookies.
3) This recipe uses bread flour rather than all-purpose flour.  Bread flour has a slightly higher gluten content than all purpose (I'll probably get shot for saying that this day and age where everyone is anti-gluten.  Sigh.)  therefore the cookies puff up and get more chewy.  You can use all purpose flour in this recipe if you don't have bread flour, you just add a little more (about 1/4 cup more.)
4) Always add extra vanilla to your chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Vanilla is what makes them taste so yummy.
5) If you use salted butter, reduce the amount of salt.  Too much salt ruins chocolate chip cookies. This was my biggest complaint about many of the recipes that claimed to be the best: too much salt.  I've already adjusted this recipe to be made with salted butter.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe in the World
2 sticks butter (1 cup), melted
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 Tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

2 1/4 cups bread flour (if you use all purpose flour, add 1/4 cup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups baking chips of choice .  You can use semi-sweet chocolate, milk chocolate, vanilla, etc.  My favorite is 1/2 semi-sweet and 1/2 vanilla chips.

In your mixer, combine the melted butter and the sugars until well blended.   Add the egg and egg yolk, milk, and vanilla and mix well.   Turn off the mixer and put in the bread flour, salt and baking soda.  Slowly incorporate the dry with the wet ingredients.  Stir in the chocolate baking chips.  Transfer the dough to an airtight container and refrigerate for several hours.  When ready to bake, heat the oven to 375.  On a parchment or silpat-lined baking sheet, scoop rounded scoops of dough.  Bake at 375 for only about 10 minutes.  Ovens vary, so check, taking them out just before you think they are done.  Cool on a wire rack.  Yum, yum, yum.  

Pantry Pick of the Month- Blueberry Pie Filling/ Blueberry Turnovers

Blueberry Pie Filling was the pantry pick for this month. (It's a game I play- I reach into the pantry and grab something, then find a recipe to make with that item.)  You can imagine my delight at getting something so yummy.  I googled blueberry pie filling recipes and had dozens to choose from. . . . so hard to choose.  But since I've always wanted to try puff pastry and since my husband LOVES turnovers (you know, the ones at Arby's), I decided to try blueberry turnovers.  So glad.  So very, very glad.   These would make a great Family Home Evening treat and the kids could help.  I found several different recipes and got some good tips:

1) Refrigerate the pie filling.  If it's cold, it's less likely to leak out the sides of the turnover.

2)  Thaw the puff pastry, but don't let it get too warm.  It should be just barely thawed when you use it.

This is what the puff pastry looks like.  You can find it in the freezer section of any grocery store.  There are other brands.  The pastry sheets are slightly different sizes in the different brands.  1 box of pastry sheets makes 8 turnovers.

3) You can use any kind of pie filling (cherry, apple, blueberry, lemon, etc.)

Blueberry Turnovers 

1 box puff pastry

1 can blueberry pie filling

1 egg

About 2 cups powdered sugar

1 Tablespoon vanilla

milk

Refrigerate the can of pie filling.  Thaw the puff pastry, but use when still very cold. Heat oven to 400.   Open the sheets and roll each to about 10" by 10" on a lightly floured board or sil pat.  With a pizza cutter cut the sheets into 5"x5" squares. This should make 8 squares. In the center of the squares, put about 2 Tablespoon of filling (no more!)

Beat the egg and with your finger or a pastry brush, brush egg around the edges of the squares.  Then fold the squares over into a triangle and press the two edges together, gluing with the egg wash.  Using a fork crimp the edges, then turn over and crimp the other side.  Use a spatula to put the turnover on a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet.  Prick the top of the turnover to allow steam to escape, then brush with the egg wash.  Repeat for all eight turnovers.  Bake in the hot oven until golden brown.  Make a glaze by mixing together the powdered sugar, vanilla and enough milk to make a thin glaze.  Drizzle over the warm turnovers. 

Sugar Pops

Starting to think about what you'd like to give your neighbors at Christmas?  These sugar pops are delicious.  You just need to fill Christmassy plastic bags and tie them with ribbon.  Attach a note, "Just popping in to wish you a merry Christmas!"
Sugar Pops
2 small or 1 large bag puffed corn
2 cups butter (1 lb.)
2 cups sugar
4 Tablespoons water

Put the corn pops in a large roasting pan and put in the oven at 300 while you make the syrup.

In a large saucepan, combine the butter, sugar, and water.  Bring to a soft boil and boil for about 7 minutes.  Take off heat and add 1 teaspoon vanilla.  Take the pops out of the oven and pour the syrup over them.  It really helps if you have another person at this point- one to slowly pour the syrup and the other to stir and stir and stir and stir.  When the puffs are evenly coated,  put them on waxed paper to cool.  Let them sit out for several hours before storing in an airtight container or bagging for gifts.  I think I will always call them "yellow things"from now on as our two-year-old grandson was with us last Christmas and kept asking for a "yellow thing."

Magic Cookie Bars

I've been making these delicious Bar Cookies since the beginning of time- well, at least the beginning of my marriage.  I love the combination of chocolate, graham, coconut and nuts and, oh man, the sweetened condensed milk.  That stuff is delicious!   Best of all, they are so fast and easy.

Magic Cookie Bars

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 1/3 cups coconut

1 rounded cup chopped pecans

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Heat oven to 325. 

Mix together the butter and graham cracker crumbs.  Press into a 13x9 pan.  Sprinkle the chocolate chips, coconut, and pecans over the top.  Pour the can of sweetened condensed milk over all and spread evenly.  Bake in the preheated oven for about 25-30 minutes.  When cool, cut into bars.  These are a great make ahead recipe because they freeze well.  They make a great Family Home Evening treat!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownie Surprise Cakes

My granddaughter, Brielle and I had fun making these yummy treats for FHE when I was visiting them in Wisconsin to welcome Brielle's new baby sister.  These are easy and fast and yummy.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownie Surprise Cakes
1 large roll chocolate chip cookie dough (Toll House is good)
1 brownie mix and the ingredients it calls for (oil, eggs, water)
1 bag of "surprise" candy, ie: miniature reese's, rolos, oreo cookies
2 dozen foil cupcake liners

Preheat the oven to 350.  Put the foil liners (we found the paper liners stuck, but the foil ones worked great!) in two muffin tins.  Press a cookie sized piece of dough into the bottom of each liner.  Then put a surprise on top of that.  It can be any miniature candy bar or an oreo cookie.  We used Reese's peanut butter cups.  Then mix up the brownie batter according to the directions and fill the cup to 2/3 full with brownie batter.  Bake for about 14 minutes or until toothpick comes out pretty clean.

Super Simple Snickerdoodles

Tonight for Family Night, Nathan was in charge of preparing a treat. He chose to make Snickerdoodles. I had a baby 3 weeks ago and am not up for a big cooking project. We found this recipe on a Duncan Hines cake mix that was super simple and delightfully delicious.

3 T sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 pkg Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Cake Mix
2 large eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets. Combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Combine cake mix, eggs and oil in large bowl. Stir until well blended. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place balls 2 inches apart on cookie sheets. Flatten balls with bottom of glass.

Bake at 375 for 8-9 minutes or until set. Cool one minute on cookie sheets. Remove to cooling rack to cool completely.