S'more whoopie pie

I'm on a baking/blogging roll!

Today was brought to us by the s'more whoopie pie.

Peanut butter cup brownies

Confession.. I made these at the beginning of April. It's now the middle of May and I'm only now getting around to posting. Oops.

They are brownies baked in mini muffin tins with peanut butter and chocolate chips spooned into the middle. They are the perfect combination of chocolate and peanut butter. They are bite size. They are adorable.

Almond Chocolate Chip cookies

I saw a story a couple weeks ago on NPR about gluten free baking. I don't particularly enjoy doing it--I feel like I have less flexibility to modify recipes because I don't know how they work, whether it's gluten, egg, dairy, soy, etc, free. Years of baking and recipes have given me some idea of how ingredients work together in cookies, breads and the like. But with GF recipes, all that goes out the window. I made some GF chocolate chip cookies a week ago that turned out incredibly flat and crispy and looked kind of.. holey. No idea why, because I don't know how the GF flour mix worked with the dairy free shortening and egg free substitute. The cookies were still delicious though, so that was a plus.

Chocolate Crinkles part 2

I used my zester again.

Of course.

Chocolate orange crinkles

This weekend, the ladies at my house hosted a winter chocolate tea party. There were chocolate cookies, sugar cookies dipped in chocolate, chocolate truffles.. the list goes on. I looked up a recipe for chocolate cookies on Friday night and meant to bake them that night, but I ended up hanging out with a friend instead. Also, it was warm under my blanket. I love the kitchen, but it doesn't have a cuddly fleece blanket to wrap me in.

Saturday morning, I woke up, got out the recipe, got started with the dough.. And then realized it needs to chill for 3 hours before being balled up, sugared and baked. Whoops. I finished the dough anyway and set aside the dough for another occasion. Like most cookie dough recipes, this is a great make-ahead dough.

The dough has lots of eggs, giving it a lovely melt-in-your-mouth texture. The original recipe called for rolling the dough in powdered sugar; I chose to make orange-scented sugar instead. I also replaced a teaspoon of the vanilla with orange to give the cookie more depth. And fine, maybe I wanted to use my zester again. It definitely needs the chill time--since there's no butter in the recipe, the melted chocolate is the only thing that solidifies to give the cookie enough heft to roll into a ball. The last modification I made was using 3 oz semi sweet baking chocolate and 1 oz non sweetened chocolate. Next time, I'll probably split it evenly between semi/unsweetened chocolate.

I made another version of cracked chocolate cookies over Christmas, but I liked this dough better because it was so much easier to work with. The other one (found at Fine Cooking) was delicious, had a more solid final texture, and didn't requite chill time, but the dough was so thick I thought my mixer was going to break.

Go ahead and melt, darlings. I'll be with you shortly.

My friend asked me who gave me the zester for Christmas. I told her, and she responded "I have to write her a thank you card, because these are amazing"

The orange sugar, it glitters!!

Everyone in the pool!

Everyone out of the pool!!!

Nom nom nom...

Chocolate crinkles

Adapted from Betty Crocker

*this dough needs to chill for at least 3 hours*

½ cup vegetable oil
1 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted, cooled
3 oz semi sweet baking chocolate, melted, cooled
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon orange extract
4 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup granulated sugar
Zest of one orange

In large bowl, mix oil, chocolate, granulated sugar and vanilla. Stir in eggs, one at a time. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover; refrigerate at least 3 hours.

While dough is chilling, mix together the sugar and orange zest, making sure to fully incorporate the zest until all the sugar is tinted orange.

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease cookie sheet with shortening or cooking spray.

Drop dough by teaspoonfuls into orange sugar; roll around to coat and shape into balls. Place about 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until almost no imprint remains when touched lightly in center. Immediately remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks.

I'm just throwing in this photo for fun, because I frakking love Seattle AND the Columbia Tower (bottom of the photo). This was taken on Saturday before the tea party, as my friend and I walked around downtown. Love love love.

Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate

I like baking. I do. But sometimes, that gets shoved under piles of I'm-working-every-weekend-and-I-have-two nights-a-week-to-fit-in-7-days-of-hanging-out-noooooo. The baking has suffered, to say the least. But! Light, tunnel, end.

As an event coordinator, my work schedule gets jam packed during the summers and then slowly, blessedly, lightens up around fall. Which is: right now! Yes! Presumably, I'm with the 6 day, 60-hour work week and back to the 5 day, 40-hour work week. Supposedly, I'm not getting sent to Ellensburg (although, it was pretty) or Oak Harbor (also, gorgeous) or Lacey (eh.. at least I didn't get shot) anytime soon.

So I took a look at my Pinterest Recipe board and realized that more than half of the items on there didn't have a "DONE" label on them. Oh no. No no. That won't do.

Peanut butter and chocolate is probably one of the best combos ever. It might even be better than salt and caramel.

So..

Some cocoa and sugar.










Whisked with water to make a smooth paste.










Add milk










And of course, peanut butter










Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate
Adapted from Babble Blogs
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup water
3 cups 2% milk
4 tbsp. creamy peanut butter
3 oz. chocolate (the original recipe called for bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped. I used chocolate chips, about 3 oz=1/2 cup)

In a saucepan, stir together the sugar and cocoa to get rid of lumps; stir in the water until smooth, then whisk in the milk over medium-high heat. Heat until steaming. Remove the pan from the heat and add the peanut butter and chocolate. Let it sit for a few seconds, then blend it with a hand-held immersion blender.