I decided to go with a smores dessert, but took it up a notch. Plain old graham crackers would not cut it. I have seen smores recipes that use pound cake, different kinds of candies and cookies. I decided on cutting back some flour and adding crushed Graham crackers to one of the thousand chocolate chip cookie recipes I have. I subbed in milk chocolate chips for semisweet chips. I also toasted the marshmallows by broiling them in our toaster oven for a few minutes. Watch them carefully so they don’t burn.

You could use fluff, if you want. I also melted some milk chocolate chips and slathered some on the bottom of each cookie before sandwiching two together with a marshmallow.

Cookies ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1 yolk
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 sleeve Graham crackers, finely crushed
• Marshmallows,toasted
• Melted chocolate

Directions – cream butter, sugar and brown sugar. Add yolk, egg and vanilla. Stir in baking soda and salt. Fold in flour and Graham cracker crumbs. Mix in chips. Scoop out 2 tbs dough and roll into balls. Chill a few hours. Preheat oven to 350. Stagger dough on sheet in rows of 3,2.3.2. Bake 10 minutes. Cool completely. Spread melted chocolate on bottom of cookies.

Place a marshmallow on top of the chocolate base.

Top with another cookie, chocolate side on marshmallow and sandwich!

Store in covered container.

Can I have one?

You can have a taste of summer all year long

Our street is having a party tomorrow and we have been assigned to bring a dessert. I can not bring just one, so I am making two. They are both relatively simple and I think will go over well. This recipe is the 454th version I have in my arsenal of a stuffed cookie. I used a chocolate fudge cake mix. I am also using dark chocolate oreos because that is the bag of Oreos someone opened and ate one and I want to use them up before they become soft and unusable and unedible.

Cookie ingredients

• 1 cake mix
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 egg
• 2 -3 tbs water.

Directions – preheat oven to 350. Combine ingredients, by hand, with a spoon. Scoop out 2 tbs of dough and roll into a ball.

Divide in half. Flatten both pieces. Place one half on flat surface.

place one Oreo on top.

top with other dough half and seal edges.

Stagger on sheet lined with nonstick baking liners.

Bake 10 min. Cool 10 min on sheet. Cool completely.

Store in covered container.

Today’s treat is a celebration of the Bills week one win over the Jets. Not pretty, but we got the “w,” which really is all that matters. So for one week, my guys are undefeated and tied for the division lead! 🙂

Brownie cake

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (I used bittersweet chocolate)
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 6 tbs cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions –preheat oven to 350. Line 8 or 9 inch cake pans with parchment paper and spray with Pam. Melt 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips and butter. Add sugar and vanilla. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in cornstarch and salt. Fold in chips. Divide evenly between prepared pans. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center basically comes out with a few crumbs. Cool completely.

Cookie dough filling/frosting ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 3 to 5 tbs milk

Directions – cream butter and brown sugar. Add vanilla. Fold in flour and powdered sugar. Add enough milk to get the consistency you want.

Assembly – place one brownie cake on a platter, top with 3/4 cup of cookie dough filling and spread evenly. Top with 2nd brownie cake and add remaining cookie dough. You can add melted chocolate on top, like I did!

Store in covered container.

Today is Rob’s birthday, so when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he said a giant hostess cupcake cake. I showed him some chocolate cake and he selected a mud cake from my Pinterest file. And my faithful companion, Gracie, was about 10 feet away, observing and hoping for a taste of something non-chocolate. As you can see my decorating skills leave much to be desired!

Cake ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup baking cocoa
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup water
• 18 tbs butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 1/3 cups dark chocolate chips
• 2 tbs oil

Directions- preheat oven to 300. Boil water in a pan. Add butter and dark chocolate and whisk until melted. Cool 5 minutes. Mix in one egg at a time and vanilla. Stir in sugar. Add milk and oil. Fold in dry ingredients. Place parchment paper in 2 – 8″ cake pans and spray with Pam. Evenly divide batter in pans. Bake 30 to 40 minutes. (Toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out with a few crumbs). Cool completely.

Filling ingredients

• 2 tbs butter, softened
• 1/2 cup marshmallow fluff
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Milk

Directions – combine butter and fluff. Blend in powdered sugar. Add vanilla. Add enough milk (1 tbs at a time) to make filling easy to spread.

Place one cake, top side down on serving plate. Spread with filling. Place other,cake, flat side down, on top of filling

Frosting ingredients

• 1 stick of butter, melted
• 2/3 cup baking cocoa
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• Milk

Directions – combine ingredients and add enough milk, one tbs at a time, so you can easily frost cake.

Squiggle ingredients

• 4 tbs butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tbs Milk
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions – blend ingredients together and scoop into sandwich baggie., cut out one corner of baggie and squiggle away on top of cake.

Store in covered container.

This is for you Peg! I made my one of my best friends from college two cakes for her surprise birthday party. One frosting was the classic chocolate on a yellow cake (her favorite). The cake was chocolate with cookie dough icing and topped with melted Hershey kisses. Some people freak out at the thought of eating uncooked flour, so you can microwave it in 2, 30 second segments if you want.

I have no pix, but here are the cookie dough frosting ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 4 tbs milk
• 2 tsp vanilla

Directions – cream butter, brown sugar and sugar. Add powdered sugar and beat at medium high 3 minutes. Fold in flour. Add milk and vanilla. Beat to desired consistency. You may nees to add more milk or,flour. You can also throw in mini chocolate chips. I did not because I put melted Hershey kisses on top.

Tomorrow is our final Saturday morning edition of Marty and McGee, so I have prepared one of my greatest hits, in terms of treats – stuffed cookies!. I have opted for chocolate chip brownie cookies stuffed with double stuff oreos. Feel free to use any standard brownie mix (around 18 ounces). You can use any type of chips and any Oreos you want. Or, you can use m&ms or Reese’s pieces instead of chips and a mini,candy bar instead of an Oreo.

Brownie cookie ingredients

• 1 brownie mix (around 18 oz)
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• Oreos

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Combine brownie mix, flour, eggs and oil. Fold in chips. Take 1 tbs of dough and place Oreo on top. Place a 2nd tbs of dough on top of oreo. Evenly cover Oreo. Repeat process. I got 15 cookies out of my batch. Stagger on cookie sheets lined with nonstick baking liners. Bake 10 minutes. Cookies may seem a little soft, but you don’t want them to burn.

Let them set on sheet for 10 minutes after you remove them from the oven.

Cool completely and store in covered container.

I made a red velvet cake today and anytime I hear the velvet, I think of that line from the movie “Coming to America.” I love that movie and Eddie Murphy has always been one,of my favorite comedians. I know there are a lot of homemade red velvet recipea out there, but i used a cake mix. I used the usual ingredients, but added some Greek yogurt and pudding mix to make it more dense. I also threw in some mini chocolate chips, because why not? I went with a cream cheese frosting today, but you can do a regular vanilla, or chocolate frosting or even cool whip.

Ingredients

• 1 red velvet cake mix
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup Greek yogurt (I used nonfat)
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1 box pudding mix (I used white chocolate)
• 1 bag mini chocolate chips

Direction- preheat oven to 350. combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil, eggs, Greek yogurt and water and blend well. Fold in chips. Place parchment paper in a 10 inch springform pan and spray w baking spray. Spread batter in evenly. Bake 22 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs. Cool completely.

Frosting ingredients

• 8 oz cream cheese (I used lowfat neufactel cheese)
• 1 stick butter, softened
• 4 cups powdered sugar

Directions – cream butter and butter 3 minutes. Gradually in powdered sugar. Spread on cake. Store in covered container.

You can keep in fridge if you want.

This weekend’s treats are something I have shared before – little debbie oatmeal creme pies. I learned something very interesting involving these treats from a co-worker. Marty informed me Nick Saban, the legendary football coach at Alabama, has them,for breakfast! I thought he was kidding when he first told me… But he assured me he was not! I loved the oatmeal pies when I was little (and the brownies too). Now, that I am -ahem – older, I like to make homemade versions of classics. I used the maple brown sugar flavored instant oatmeal packets. You can try any flavor or just use regular instant oatmeal too.

Ingredients –

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 12 pkts instant oatmeal (each packet equals 1/3 cup)
• 2 cups flour
• 4 tbs Milk

Directions

Cream butter, brown sugar, sugar, baking powder and baking soda. Blend in flour and oatmeal. Stir in,eggs and milk. Chill dough an hour or so. Preheat oven to 350. Scoop 2 tbs dough and stagger on cookie sheet lined with baking liners.

Bake 12 min. Cool completely.

Filling ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tbs cream
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions – cream butter and powdered sugar. Add cream and vanilla and beat well. Spread between two sandwich cookies.

Store in covered container.

I made these last weekend for my goddaughter Lyndsey and wanted to post the recipe foe her to try. She loves to bake and has quite a talent to do so. Whenever she and her sister, Sara, (my other goddaughter) come visit, we always bake whatever they want. Btw, This recipe has some tiny changes from a previous pb bars post.

Crust ingredients –

• 1 package of Oreos, finely crushed
• 8 tbs butter, melted

Combine and press into bottom on 9×13 pan

Topping – 2 cups chocolate chips, melted

Pour 1/2 of melted chips onto crust

Peanut butter layer ingredients

• 1 cup butter, melted
• 2 cups Graham cracker crumbs
• 1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 tsp vanilla

Combine and press over chocolate layer. Spread remaining chocolate on top. I cut these before,the chocolate sets, to try and keep the chocolate-breaking to a minimum

This weekend, is one of my favorite things all year – our annual get together with college friends and their families. We started doing this right after graduation at Geneseo and have kept it up all these years, which is pretty amazing. The group started with 7 of us, and there are now 20 of us, including spouses and kids. It is amazing how well everyone gets along. I am so fortunate to have all of them,in my life. Here is how we plan – early each spring an email goes out, asking for the best month and dates. Then we narrow it,down and pick a weekend. We alternate between Western NY and Connecticut for our destinations. Of course, eiter place gives me a great excuse to bake. This year, i wanted to bring something for the kids. One boy wanted Hershey bars, the other andes candies (somewhere in heaven, my gramma Lisi is smiling., she always had those at her house). My goddaughter Lyndsey wanted the pb bars with an oreo crust (recipe in a previous post). I learned recently my other goddaughter Sara loves mint chocolate chip ice cream, so she will have mint chocolate chip cookies stuffed with mint Oreos. I could not find mint chips, so I opted to use mini ones. You can use regular chocolate chips or even milk chocolate chips

Oh and I use m&m’s to identify the cookies because I ran out of mint Oreos., the green m&m’s indicate a mint Oreo inside, brown indicates a regular Oreo. Yes, I am well aware I am wpund waaaaaay too tight. But I have a system!

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp peppermint extract
• 3 eggs
• 12 drops green food color
• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp,baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 bag of mini chips
• 1 bag of Oreos

Directions – cream butter and sugar. Add extract and eggs. Blend in green food color (you don’t have to use this if you don’t want to). Fold in dry ingredients. Blend in chips. Chill dough 2 hours. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take 2 tbs of dough and flatten. Wrap each around an Oreo, and seal. Stagger on cookie sheet lined with nonstick baking liners. Bake 12 to 15 min. Let cool on sheet.

Store in covered container.